Diane Tatum grew up in St. Louis, MO. She started writing her own stories in elementary school. Her first novel grew out of a short story she wrote in high school. College was a detour to a Bachelor's degree in Accounting and Business Administration and later a Masters in Teaching Language Arts. Between degrees, she stayed home raising her boys and began writing again. She started freelance writing for magazines and church Sunday school curriculum. She also finished her first novel, Gold Earrings.After teaching middle school language arts in Tullahoma City Schools for 11 years, she retired with her husband's encouragement to write the historical fiction books that she had been starting and saving on her computer. Gold Earrings was published in 2011. Her latest is a Romantic Suspense called Hiding in the Highlands. She has completed three books in her Colonial Dream series, and three contemporary novels: Oxford Fairy Tale, Mission Mesquite, Dreaming of a Wedded Christmas, and Finding Love in the Fog of Aphasia. She started writing mystery/suspense with Kudzu Sculptures and three more Main Street Mysteries. She's written one time travel: Cecilia's Y2 Key. In addition she serves as an adjunct English professor at Motlow State Community College.About her writing process ...What I love about writing fiction is creating characters that become deeper and fuller as the story evolves. It's almost like watching a movie and needing to write it down as fast as possible before the story evaporates! When an idea comes along, I write as much as I can as quickly as I can. The real work comes later when I then flesh out the story from the kernel already written. It doesn't matter where the written portion belongs in the story; I just write "the rest of the story" around the nugget that inspired the idea.All of the work that I do is inspired by my relationship with Christ. The themes revolve around important ideas from my daily quiet time and preparation for teaching youth Sunday school. Gold Earrings is concerned with not judging people by their outward appearance because God knows their heart. A Time to Choose is about the choices we make and the ramifications of our choices.In addition, I do freelance writing online for several blogs, the Medium network, and for collections of essays. I write about our travels, suggested assignments, and my lessons in living day by day as a Christian.Read more about this authorRead less about this author