author bio
Jenny Crusie was born in Wapakoneta, a small Ohio town on the banks of the Auglaize River. She graduated from Wapakoneta High School and earned her bachelor's degree from Bowling Green State University in Art Education. She married in 1971 and lived briefly in Wichita Falls, Texas, until her air force husband was transferred to Dayton, Ohio.
Jenny taught pre-school until her daughter, Mollie, was born. When she returned to work, she taught in the Beavercreek public school system for ten years as an elementary and junior high art teacher while earning a master's degree from Wright State University in Professional Writing and Women's Literature; her master's thesis was titled “A Spirit More Capable of Looking Up To Him: Women's Roles in Mystery Fiction 1841-1920.”
She took a leave of absence from Beavercreek in 1986 to complete her Ph.D. coursework at Ohio State University in feminist criticism and nineteenth century British and American literature. She returned to teach high school English (American and British literature surveys, mythology, the Bible in literature, and college composition) for another five years, and during this time she also directed theater tech crews (sets and costumes) for the Beavercreek Drama Department.
In the summer of 1991, she began to research her dissertation on the impact of gender on narrative strategies, searching out the differences in the way men and women tell stories. As part of the research, she planned to read one hundred romance novels and one hundred men's adventure novels. The romance novels turned out to be so feminist and so absorbing, that she never got to the men's adventure fiction and decided to try writing fiction instead, quitting her job the following spring to devote herself full time to writing and to finishing the Ph.D., one of her riskier moves since she didn't sell her first book until August of '92.
The sale was to Silhouette, a novella titled Sizzle, that Jenny now refers to as “really lousy.” Silhouette delayed its publication so that it became the second book published under the Crusie pseudonym, Jenny's maternal grandmother's family name. Although Silhouette rejected Jenny's next novel, Harlequin accepted it and published it in 1993 as Manhunting in their Temptation line. Five more Harlequins followed, including Getting Rid of Bradley which won the RWA Rita Award for Best Short Contemporary, Strange Bedpersons, What the Lady Wants, Charlie All Night, and Anyone But You. She also wrote two category novels for Bantam's Loveswept line, The Cinderella Deal and Trust Me On This. During this time she put the PhD on hold to earn an MFA in fiction from OSU; her thesis was titled, Just Wanted You To Know, and consisted of several short stories and the proposal for a mainstream novel titled Crazy For You. During this time she also wrote a book of literary criticism on Anne Rice, published under the name Jennifer Smith.
In the fall of 1995, Jenny began to write single title novels for St. Martin's Press where she very happily remains to this day. She is especially delighted to be working with her editor, Jennifer Enderlin, her agent Meg Ruley, and her business partner, Mollie Smith.
Today, in many ways, Jenny has come full circle. She collaborates with Bob Mayer on romantic adventure novels, putting into practice everything she studied about the differences in the way men and women write fiction in that long ago PhD dissertation, and she is once again living on the banks of an Ohio river. Her solo novels continue to explore women's journeys, especially issues dealing with relationships, friendships, community, and creativity, and her collaborations with Bob and others give her the opportunity to explore those same things in real life. She is a very fortunate woman, and she knows it.