Photo Credit: Garrett Billings
With the age-old advice of saying “write what you know”, these powerful and successful female authors took that advice and ran with it, becoming some of the biggest names in fiction and using their experience in their careers to catapult a career in publishing. These nine authors were able to use what they’ve learned and experienced in their day jobs and provide readers everywhere with stories that are impossible to put down.
Robert Matzen
Prior to his debut fiction novel, Robert Matzen specialized in nonfiction centered around Hollywood and World War II. With intimate knowledge of Warner Bros. studio and filmmaking, Matzen dove into the fiction world with a dazzling story of the making of the industry’s greatest film: Casablanca. His intimate knowledge of the landscape as well as his extensive work on the era makes for a stunning narrative and world layered with detail.
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T.J. Newman
T.J. Newman is a former bookseller and flight attendant who utilized that experience to create Falling and Drowning, two books featuring thrilling plots that involve plane crashes. Using her behind-the-scenes knowledge after working as a flight attendant, Newman can provide details and explain what would really happen in these situations effortlessly while providing a heart stopping action thriller plot that is one you won’t want to take your eye off from.
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Cristina Alger
When reading hits from Cristina Alger like The Banker’s Wife and Girls Like Us, you may wonder where all of this information and knowledge from the police procedural aspects to the extensive information about finances and legal information. Alger worked as an attorney in New York and has an array of knowledge when it comes to finances and the legal system that give her novels that extra bit of intricate knowledge to provide you with a well-detailed and brilliant ride from cover to cover.
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Teresa Sorkin
A co-founder of Roman Way Productions – a production company with over thirty projects in development for film and television – Teresa Sorkin once worked as an entertainment journalist and producer which proves that her experience behind the scenes gives that cinematic flair to stores Woman in the Park and Lacie’s Secrets. What started off as a film script quickly became a novel when Woman in the Window was co-written with Tullan Holmqvist and translated from a screenplay to a thriller novel.
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Ashley Flowers
Ashley Flowers wears many hats and flawlessly produces and hosts multiple podcasts through the audiochuck network. From when audiochuck launched in December 2017, Ashley has worked tirelessly providing content for millions of listeners as she sinks her teeth into some of the most complex crime cases. With all of her extensive research and the insane amount of cases Ashley has covered, it was no surprise that she released a twisty, cinematic, and gritty novel titled All Good People Here that reads like a true crime story ripped from the headlines.
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Jeneva Rose
Jeneva Rose took the world by storm when she released The Perfect Marriage and everyone was talking about the plot, the twist, and Jeneva’s way of telling a story. Things really blew up when Jeneva released a TikTok that detailed the plot as if Jeneva was telling her own story, not necessarily the story about her two characters. By the time the short video was over, the viewer would find this is actually a novel Jeneva had written and the sales skyrocketed. Jeneva Rose worked in marketing for over a decade, using those skills to market her novel and now she is a New York Times bestselling author.
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Lucinda Berry
Dr. Lucinda Berry was once a clinical psychologist and leading researcher in childhood trauma. With that experience, Lucinda Berry is able to provide chilling and realistic domestic suspense and psychological thrillers. With majority of her stories involving the relationships and complications within them between a parent and child, it’s clear that Berry’s experience is able to assist her phenomenal storytelling capabilities to provide her readers with exceptionally plotted books from The Perfect Child to When She Returned.
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Marie Lu
After graduating from the University of Southern California, Marie Lu began working as a Flash artist for Disney Interactive Studios. Now, with her series The Young Elites, Lu is using her experience working in video games to create a fantasy series that is unlike anything else in the genre. From duels inspired by Street Fighter to a Renaissance Italy setting inspired by Assassin’s Creed, Lu says that games will always influence her future writing and with her experience, her readers are in for an experience like nothing else.
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Michele Campbell
With books like It’s Always the Husband and A Stranger on the Beach, you wouldn’t expect these tantalizing domestic suspense stories to have anything to do with Michele Campbell’s actual life, but this fall when the legal thriller The Intern comes out on 10/3, you’ll get a taste of Campbell’s work history. Michele Campbell once had a legal career as a former federal prosecutor in New York City before moving to a small town in New England with her family. In between writing, Campbell spends her time teaching criminal and constitutional law.
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Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz early in their career, was a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a lecturer in American Studies at UC Berkeley. From there, they went on to be a freelance science journalist including work in The New York Times and a columnist at New Scientist. With this experience under their belt, no one can write non-fiction and fiction like Annalee Newitz. From Autonomous to The Terraformers, Newitz’s experience and knowledge within science and journalism ensures that these science fiction novels are ones that will transport you to a completely different world…and you’ll believe it!
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Alexa Martin
Alexa Martin is the wife of an NFL player and a stay at home mom with four children. Between the hours of being a mother and a wife that never stop, Martin still found time to write. Martin began writing when she was finding herself lonely when her husband was playing football and after 50 Shades of Grey was released, she began to work on her first novel. Now, Alexa Martin has been able to take her life as the wife of an NFL player and create the ultimate collection of sports romances with The Playbook series.
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Alafair Burke
After graduating from Stanford Law School in California, Alafair Burke went on to be a District Attorney in Portland and also served as an advisor to the police department. Burke’s knowledge of law and her experience in prosecuting violent offenses is executed brilliantly in her stories that combine elements of a thriller with domestic suspense and a legal or police procedural aspect. If you’re looking for a bingeworthy series that uses all aspects of Burke’s knowledge of legal and police procedural elements, the Ellie Hatcher series is the perfect series to dive into!
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