About The Author

Paula Evans Archer began writing poetry and short fiction in high school during the late 1960’s. Though no one in her family was well educated or avid readers, her childhood was inspired by early black and white TV such as Hallmark Hall of Fame dramas, Peter Pan, ballet, opera, and orchestral concert broadcasts, cartoons, Band Stand, and other programs in the 1950’s. As an adolescent and teenager, she was influenced by the music movement of the times including Folk, Motown, and early Rock throughout the 1960’s. Having sung choral music since first grade, she was also active in her high school’s state championship chorus and sang solos, acted, and danced in several of their musical theatrical productions such as Carousel, Oklahoma, Brigadoon, and numerous Christmas choral performances throughout Philadelphia. During this time, her mother took her to Broadway to see Fiddler on the Roof which was interrupted with the announcement of the deaths of the students at Ohio State University which ignited her love of live drama and politics which lasts to the present day.

She married at 19 and had to wait until she was 26 to realize her dream of going to college where she achieved both her BA and MA in Literature at Boston College in the same four years. During this time she focused on classical and modern drama, women authors, and poetry especially Emily Dickinson, both Brownings, Yeats, and the little known Dramatic Monologue. During her time at college, the Upstart Crow published her provocative interpretation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, she resurrected the literary works of Catherine Sinclair (a contemporary of and equally successful author as Sir Walter Scott), and the new Boston College Theatre produced one of her one act mime plays to much acclaim.

She continued to write plays and poetry throughout the 1980s and 1990s while working full time as a software technical writer, raising two children, and supporting her husband’s various architectural business ventures. This is her first work of fiction – the first book of a three book series – all of which came to into her head whole one morning in May 1988. This first book was written in one and a half years part-time and appears almost exactly as it was originally envisioned in the author’s mind with only a few very minor changes.

Watch the Insider Video Interview with the Author.