Amy Leigh Harden is a self-described “type A” person who thrives on staying busy. In addition to writing and spending time with her family, she runs a traffic engineering firm and serves as President of the Kansas City-Midwest Romance Writers group. A KC native, Amy loves classic pin-up girl art, loves to cook, and her family loves to take train trips together. Want a cool story? Ask her about the time she and her grandmother took part in a police chase following car thieves.
Ever the over-achiever, Amy describes her first drafts as quite detailed: “I'm an over-writer so my first drafts are monstrous with fifteen subplots and enough characters to make Charles Dickens blush.” She has a special interest in historical fiction and romantic suspense and has published four novels. Her favorite quote about writing is from Thomas Edison: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Amy will join our Writers Conference for two sessions this year: she will lead a class on crafting a compelling first draft (“Applying Structure Before, During, or After a First Draft”) and serve as a panelist on the topic of rejection and critique.
If you’d like to keep up with Amy, you can visit her on her website or follow her on Twitter or Instagram (where she has a cool mood board for her current work in progress!).
-- written by Jesseca Bear, adult services information specialist