I grew up in the American South during the Cold War. My family was transplanted by one of those heartless corporations. Eight-year-old me discovered I had three strikes: my unpronounceable Russian last name, my family’s recent arrival, and the worst? I was a Yankee. On my first afternoon in Beaufort, North Carolina I crossed the path of a man who stopped to chat and, after a few moments, said, “Why, you’re a Yankee, aren’t you?”“Yes!” I enthused. “My favourite team.”When the kids at school taunted me about being a Communist, I pointed out that my family would have had no reason to leave Russia had they been. And when I got flak about the Civil War I explained that my ancestors were noncombatants—after all, my family had been in Russia at the time. As Marcus Aurelius once said, “That which does not kill us makes us strong.”Life improved when I got to Emory University. With my usual meticulous planning I picked the school because I liked the campus. Here I encountered peers with open minds. I majored in English and had deep thoughts.After graduation I got a job in public relations with the same heartless corporation my father had worked for. They transplanted me to New York City, and my real education began. After a couple of years working in very luxe circumstances at corporate headquarters on Lexington Avenue, I quit to become an actress. That worked out for me about the same as it does for most. From there I moved on to design, and earned a degree from FIT. Our very admirable teachers warned us about the garment industry, as they called it, but what young person listens to advice? Not this young person. After working a few years for a couple of junior sportswear firms I quit and started my own business. I sold one of a kind boutique clothing to department stores and boutiques, especially Henri Bendel and Bergdorf Goodman. I worked as a consultant for the Met’s Costume Institute and went to Paris to mount an exhibit for the Centre Culturel du Marais. Life was fun. And then—and then—I met the man of my dreams. He extricated me from my garret and took me to LA, where I worked in costuming for The Center Theater Group. The relentless good weather got on my nerves. Luckily that was going to change. After 10 years and two children, the heartless corporation my husband worked for transplanted us to Wessex, England. I was on the corporation’s side, this time, though.I loved living in a village. It took me a couple years to realise that I didn’t understand the British at all. I understood what was expected of Americans, however. I became loud and cheery and wrote up my trans-Atlantic experiences. These were published in England.Anglo-Saxon remains were found at the local village school my children attended, and I began to wonder if there were some buried on the grounds of our house. I studied these obscure, archaic folk. A tale took shape in my mind. How, I wondered, would the story go if Cinderella lived in the Dark Ages and was a spoiled brat? Courting Trouble was conceived. The birth, however, would be a slow process.I shelved the project after going to a UK writer’s conference. There a publisher told me that it was too bad I had set my book in the medieval period. Although my script was humorous and well-written, there was no demand for medieval romantic comedies. This criticism stopped me cold. I couldn’t see how to transplant the story into a different era. I never wanted to look at the damn thing again.So, the damn thing sat on its little rigid computer disks. The text was written in the earliest version of Lotus’ Wordperfect. Like a helmet from Sutton Hoo, over time the disks became artefacts. Every year, my husband bugged me to finish the book. Instead, I took up egg tempera painting. Finally, in 2016 or 17, my husband said it was time to get rid of the circa 1990 computer that could read the text. He didn’t want to smash it, though, until he got the book into some sort of readable format. Even Wordperfect could not decipher this early version of itself. After many hours of tedious fiddling, the dear man got the book into a text format that could be read by my computer. I was annoyed.He had gone to so much trouble that I felt obliged to read it. As I read the book after all this time, I got drawn in. I was entertained. I didn’t remember what was going to happen next. Re-inspired, I finished writing the book.I wasn’t going to risk discouragement from a commercial publisher, and I was beginning to question what they brought to the table other than the remote possibility of being reviewed. I published the book on Amazon, where it gets about as much readership as you would expect. Undaunted, I have written a second—at lightening speed for me. It has only been a year or so since I started. What, I asked myself, would life be like—ten years on—for the lucky maiden who married the prince? Nun Too Clever attempts to answer that question. It is a mystery, centred on a nun who dies unexpectedly. A precious relic is stolen, and a village girl goes missing. The queen wants to sort it all out before her bossy husband returns from the front and gets all the credit.elainedrew.comRead more about this authorRead less about this author