Vera Jane Cook

I am an award-winning hybrid author of southern and women's Fiction, including Dancing Backward in Paradise, The Story of Sassy Sweetwater, Where the Wildflowers Grow, Pleasant Day, Marybeth, Hollister & Jane and Lies a River Deep. I was born in New York City and grew up amid the eccentricity of my southern and glamorous mother on the Upper West and Upper East Side of Manhattan. As an only child, I turned to reading novels at an early age and was deeply influenced by an eclectic group of authors. Some of my favorite authors today are Nelson DeMille, Wally Lamb, Anne Rice, Sue Monk Kidd, Anita Shreve, Jodi Picoult, Alice Walker, Anna Quindlen, Lianne Moriarty, and Anne Rivers Siddons. The first novel I ever wrote, Dancing Backward In Paradise, won an Eric Hoffer Award for publishing excellence and an Indie Excellence Award for notable new fiction, in 2007. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater and Dancing Backward in Paradise received 5 Star ForeWord Clarion Reviews and The Story of Sassy Sweetwater has been named a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. I have published in ESL Magazine, and Christopher Street Magazine. I have also written early childhood curriculum for Weekly Reader and McGraw Hill. I am married and live on the Upper West side of Manhattan with my spouse, my adorable chihuahua, Peanut, and my two beautiful pussy cats, Sassy and Sweetie Pie.