Posted July 2003 Once upon a time, Nora Santella edited many of the most popular romance novelists as well as the aspiring while she guided the content of the Romance Writers Report (RWR). Then one day she quietly walked away. Now she’s come back out to play in the land of Happily Ever After with the publication of her first book, Guess Again, a contemporary tale of romantic suspense. What’s Love Got To Do With It? by Helaina Fey Before adding published author to her résumé, Nora Santella has worked as a bank teller, typesetter, newspaper reporter, wedding photographer, freelance editor and corporate business communicator. We met recently at a rural tearoom in America’s heartland to chat, bouncing like Gemini twins from one topic to another. A contagious belly laugh underscores Nora’s aura of “what you see is what you get.” Had her family not transplanted from the East Coast to the Midwest when she was a teen-ager, she probably would’ve sung for her livelihood rather than have trained for an award-winning career in journalism.

Nora Santella, sketched by Ed Miller

Q. I understand that you’re a Charm School dropout. A. Indeed, I am. (Laughs) You had to dig deep to unearth that tidbit. I don’t think it’s listed on my current résumé.

Neither is computer expert or spy, yet Guess Again has managed to convince book reviewers that you’re comfortable writing about espionage and the fast-paced world of artificial intelligence. What can I say? (Another laugh) Intrigue is my middle name. Imagination is my game. What sparked the story idea behind Guess Again? The swan lapel pin. I first visualized an assassin who left a black cloisonné swan pin on his victims to take credit for a “signature” kill. Then I wondered, “What if this guy murdered the hero’s father, but the reason was personal, not professional? Why would he make the father pay the ultimate punishment? And what would happen if the hero met the assassin’s daughter years later—except she doesn’t know the truth about her father?” Why did you weave a Russian thread into your plot’s fabric? It evolved when I kept stumbling across articles and snippets of information about such diverse things as stage design, jewelry, food, even curse words—all with a Russian twist. I finally figured out that the Universe was trying to tell me something the day that a newspaper story spelled out Komitét Gosudárstvennoy Bezopásnosti—the full name of the KGB. Duh! (Laughs)

Are there any instances in your book of art imitating life? I once interviewed a Russian engineer for a corporate newsletter in the 1980s. Her preference for drinking just plain hot water in a mug impressed me enough that, years later, it inspired a quirky but significant moment in a restaurant scene for Guess Again. Authors are human sponges, absorbing everything we see, read or hear. I’ve never met anyone else with Russian roots, though. My own heritage is Irish and Italian.

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How long have you been writing and why did you start? I’ve enjoyed a lifelong love affair with words and the concept of “what if.” A talent for writing helped me throughout school. By the time I’d finished my freshman year in college, two professors convinced me to major in journalism. After I earned my degree, I worked as a newspaper reporter, specializing in what my editor called “sob sister” features, but even those I wrote from the heart. It still amazes me that one of my more candid stories about an unwed mother who put her baby up for adoption and the reunion years later with her grown-up daughter won a national award in 1976 from the National Federation of Press Women. That’s when I realized my style of writing could touch people’s emotions. When I was an active member of Missouri Press Women, my desire to write genre fiction made me an oddity among my peers. (Laughs) Journalists tend to gravitate toward writing “serious” literature, biographies and nonfiction. I joined the Romance Writers of America, Inc., in 1987, in desperation. The move helped me focus on the process of writing a book as well as the business. More recently, I applied for membership in EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection. But, oh, the potholes I’ve encountered along the way as I strove to achieve my dream. You put your own writing career on hold for two years to edit the Romance Writers Report – the official magazine of RWA®. Everybody needs a hobby. (Laughs) The late Emma Merritt [a past president of RWA, 1988-1990] persuaded me to sign up for duty. I loved and miss that woman. My stint as the last volunteer RWR editor turned out to be a life lesson. There is nothing lukewarm about the relationship between members of RWA and their publication. It’s either love or hate; there’s no middle ground. But I believe that the true potential of the RWR, both to serve the membership of RWA and to enhance the public image of romance writing, became apparent under my stewardship. If nothing else, the board finally acknowledged that the RWR editor could no longer be required to serve in an unpaid capacity if they wanted to maintain a high-quality, professional magazine.

© Romance Writers of America, Inc.; cover art by Judy Johnson

You walked quietly away instead of applying for the paid position that you’d worked to make possible. Why? A mental health decision. I’ve no regrets. Oh, I’ll admit it was a cheap thrill to walk into the grocery store, see the latest bestseller by a big-name romance author and know I’d just edited an article written by the very same person. But I thank God that I never let the position go to my head.

It’s not like I was a Harlequin book editor with the power to make or break someone’s career if I accepted or rejected her query letter. And it certainly didn’t give me an advantage over the competition when it came to getting my book published sooner. (Laughs) I do cherish a special memento from my time as RWR editor, though, besides my RWA National Service Award for 1993. Judy Johnson, one of the graphic artists who’d frequently designed covers for the magazine, painted a ceramic mask based on her cover art for one of my favorite issues that highlighted ethnic romance. She inscribed the flip side, “Without you, the RWR would just be junk mail,” and presented it to me after my retirement. I was deeply touched. Tell us your publishing story. My “novel” experience has been a long, circuitous road, but, I suspect, not so different from the path of many other authors. After I attended my first national romance writers conference in 1990, I started sending the manuscript for Guess Again to the traditional big houses and received very encouraging rejections. But it’s not only talent that helps to get an author published. It’s timing and luck, too, along with dogged persistence. For instance, one New York editor kept my manuscript in limbo for 16 months. During those months, the Berlin Wall got demolished and the USSR dissolved. Even veteran literary spy masters like authors John le Carre, Robert Ludlum and Ken Follett found coming out of the Cold War into a new world order made readers indifferent to old-fashioned espionage fiction. Knowing I was in good company, though, took the edge off my rejection letters. A critique partner suggested I cut out the Russian overlay in Guess Again, but I balked at staking my story through the heart. The ethnicity is essential to the story and I couldn’t “lose” the KGB back-story without destroying the entire book. Only one editor out of two dozen rejected the manuscript for that reason, scribbling, “I don’t like the Russian angle,” in pencil across my query letter before she mailed it back. Just as I was ready to kiss my hopes for publication good-bye, the real-life story of the FBI agent spying for the Russians made headlines in February 2001. I’m big on “signs.” I took this one as a sign from the patron saint of wordsmiths to keep trying. It also confirmed the rhetorical question written a decade earlier that my fictional FBI hero asks his partner: “Where is it written that governments do not or cannot spy on so-called friends?” Meantime, I’d started reading about ebook publishing on writer discussion lists and heard through the grapevine that a reputable electronic book publisher, Wordbeams, would be open for submissions throughout March 2001. I decided to try electronic submission and updated Guess Again for the 21st Century, working like a demon on my revisions to make the epublisher’s deadline. The hard work paid off; Wordbeams offered me an ebook contract three months later. It’s a pleasant shock when someone in the book business responds enthusiastically to your story and thinks readers will enjoy it, too. By the end of 2001, however, Wordbeams was closed down, not for financial reasons, but due to the owner’s severe health problems. The loss of any good epublisher is a blow to the industry, of course, but the loss set me back to Square One. While I reeled from the impact, I also had to scramble to find another home for my orphaned manuscript. There were close to a hundred talented authors associated with Wordbeams, so I felt very fortunate when Hard Shell Word Factory, one of the oldest epubs, invited me to submit Guess Again. I was giddy with relief when I was welcomed into the “turtle pond” with a book contract in February 2002. And, believe me, I kept my fingers crossed, for good measure, up until my book went “live” in July 2003 on the Hard Shell website.

Where can people find your book?  Hard Shell Word Factory, http://www.hardshell.com, is the most direct way to buy it, although it will also be available soon in other stores. My web page at http://www.norasantella.com and the Hard Shell site both contain different excerpts from Guess Again.

Cherished keepsake; painted by Judy Johnson

What’s next on your writing agenda? My current work in progress is a contemporary romance that contains elements of reincarnation, extrasensory perception and magic, with a dash of intrigue. The fictional hero is to die for and that’s just what the heroine did for him, literally, when they’d previously met in 16th Century Mexico. Behind Shadows, Beyond Dreams recently placed third in the paranormal/futuristic category of the Magnolia State Romance Writers' Dixie First Chapter Contest as well as the contemporary romance category of the Tampa Area Romance Authors' First Impressions Contest. It’s been reassuring to hear from contest judges that I’m off to a good start. Where might fans or readers contact you? I can be reached at P.O. Box 404, Peculiar, MO 64078-0404, or online at nora@norasantella.com . Care to share any words of wisdom for aspiring authors? Write a book only if you love your craft—not because you expect riches, fame and fortune. Years of hard work, in most cases, go into a writer’s so-called “overnight” success. To quote the ancient Chinese I Ching, or Book of changes: “As a new plant breaks the ground with great difficulty, so must we sometimes push against difficulty in bringing forth our dreams.” Thank you, Nora, for sharing your thoughts. It has been a pleasure. I wish you every success in the future.