Jessa Slade
Despite a grade school career aptitude test that indicated farming would be her best bet, Jessa always knew she wanted to be a writer. Her early works include "My Poems," a poetry chapbook rampant with unicorns and misspellings, and, later, a torrid teen cowboy romance which her editor-mother asked her to revise and resubmit, changing the love scene to "soul mates." After close to a million final draft words and nearly triple digit rejections, she sold her first novel, an urban fantasy romance, to NAL Signet Eclipse.