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NTRWA May 2004 Spotlight On...
TERRY HARRIS
by Juliet Burns
WRITE WHAT
YOU KNOW. We’ve all heard that saying. It’s good advice. But Terry Harris
has taken that advice to the limit in her current work in progress.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Although born in California, Terry seems the
quintessential Texan girl. She can always be found in boots and jeans and
loves to two-step to country music. Terry moved around a lot as a child
but finally at fifteen she and her family settled in Plano. At 19, while working her
way through college, she met her husband, Gary. Not that it happened that
fast. After five years, her shy, quiet boyfriend still hadn’t proposed.
So after her sister’s wedding, Terry’s father pulled Gary aside and said, “So, are you
going to marry my daughter or what?”
By the end of the evening, Gary and Terry had set a date for their own
wedding.
They’ve been happily married 17 years and have 4 children. Terry can
sometimes be found substitute teaching in Fort Worth, but most of the time is
behind the wheel chauffeuring 4 kids to various sporting, choral, or band
events.
An extrovert who is a self proclaimed busybody, Terry has always loved
writing. As a young girl, she kept a journal and wrote stories in school.
But, though she’s always loved to read romance, she never intended to
become a romance writer, and instead attended UT Dallas and majored first
in accounting, and then, with the encouragement of a college professor,
switched to psychology.
As it turns out, that degree in psychology has come in handy, helping to
flesh out her characters.
In 1998, after reading great authors like Nora Roberts,
Catherine Coulter, and Julie Garwood for years, Terry
wanted to try writing her own. A year and a half later,
she’d finished a manuscript, joined the San Gabriel Writer’s
League, and her manuscript, GOING HOME, finaled in the
Writer’s
League of Texas annual contest.
Recovering from surgery and busy schedules kept her from writing for a
couple of years after they moved back to Dallas, but eventually Terry needed
to write again. She joined NTRWA in January 2002 and is currently working
on a sequel to the first story called, COMING HOME, which also finaled in
the San Gabriel Writer’s League Contest. She’s targeting Harlequin
Superromance and last week Lara Smiltnieks asked to see the partial.
In this sequel, the heroine is trying to overcome her past by facing the
man who molested her as a young girl. As a survivor of a similar
incident, Terry feels strongly in pushing the envelope in romance novels
to bring this taboo subject to light. She says talking about it empowers
victims and wants to reach other women with a message of hope of, not
just surviving, but of thriving.
As writers, we all reach inside ourselves for the truth. We write what we
know. We can make a difference.
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