Merry grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was introduced to Regency romances at a young age by her mother, who had a secret passion for Georgette Heyer.
After graduating with a bachelor’s in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania, Merry worked in fundraising for a number of non-profit organizations. When this didn’t prove as fulfilling as she would have hoped, she went back to school for a master’s degree in secondary education where she shared her love of history with inner-city teenagers and tried to instill the same love in them — the jury’s still out on whether it worked. Marriage and the birth of two children interrupted her second attempt at a career.
In order to keep her sanity while raising her children, Merry began living in a fantasy world filled with dashing, noble heroes and beautiful heroines. Desperately searching for an excuse to put the children into daycare, Merry decided to write down her fantasies and call it “working”. She was amazed when someone other than her husband actually liked her writing.
In 2002, Merry was one of the three winners of the Royal Ascot Writing Contest and was offered a two book contract with Kensington Publishers. Miss Seton’s Sonata, Merry’s first book, was released in January 2004 from Zebra Books. Her second book, Wooing Miss Whately, came out in June ’04. The last two books of the Merry Men Quartet, Love of my Life and Dame Fortune were published in June and September 2005, with her last book having the esteemed honor of being one of the last traditional Regency romances published by Kensington. Miss Seton’s Sonata was the winner of the 2004 Golden Leaf Contest for best Regency Romance; Love of my Life won second place in the Write Touch Reader’s Award, 2005; and Dame Fortune was a finalist in the National Reader’s Choice Award, The Beacon Award and the NJ Golden Leaf.
Since the death of traditional Regencies, Merry has been working on a number of different projects including writing YA fantasy, Regency-set paranormal romance, and women’s fiction. For the most part, she’s been writing up a storm and having a great time exploring all of the different stories she hadn’t had a chance to write while writing traditional Regencies. Merry is also loving every minute she spends teaching other people how to write at the Writer’s Institute at Frederick Community College.
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David Grzan
November 3, 2012 at 5:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Meredith, your credentials may underscore the framework of your career; but your forte lies in your special calling to help others fulfill the depth and breadth of their dreams and aspirations respecting their desire to pierce the realm of Romance and absorb its affect for the purpose of translating the constructs of passion, fleshed with animated realism, is a feat for which you were obviously destined. Your new avid admirer, David Grzan, Author of “Don Quixote’s Impossible Dream”.
Weekly Lecture Schedule, December 3-7, 2012 | Romance University
December 1, 2012 at 1:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[...] – 12/7 - Author Meredith Bond tackles The Importance of Setting on [...]