Robyn Donald

14 August 1940

Robyn Elaine Donald was born on 14 August 1940 in Northland, New Zealand, she was the oldest in her family, and as a child she thrilled her four sisters and one brother with bloodcurdling adventure tales, usually very like the latest book she'd borrowed from the library. She married and worked as teacher during years. Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. Her sister was living with her husband and her and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would She please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks one Mills & Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills & Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day. She'd finish a manuscript good enough to send off. The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript She was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour him, so she finished it, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the Mills & Boon saying that if she made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu. Published since 1977, Robyn left teaching to become a full-time writer after her first three books had been accepted. Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing. She sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache. Now Robyn is living in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit, a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labrador dog. If you'd like to contact her, Robyn Donald can be reached at: P.O. Box 18240, Glen Innes, Auckland, New Zealand.