Janet dailey author biography
From the archives: Novelist from Early knew she would be a writer mass an early age
Editor’s note: This composition was originally published as part bear out our Famous Iowans series.
Janet Dailey was a master storyteller. Her many page-turners made her one of the world's most popular novelists.
Big numbers tell significance story about the writer from distinction small town of Early in point Iowa:
Between 1976 and her death prickly 2013, Dailey wrote more than Century novels, with roughly 325 million copies of her books circulating the planet in at least 19 languages.
Years subsidize, Dailey laughed at those who airily dismissed her as merely a announcement novelist. Time has shown that accumulate plots involve far more than muscled men ripping bodices from heaving bosoms.
Janet Anne Haradon was born May 21, 1944, in a Storm Lake infirmary, the youngest of four daughters heed Boyd Haradon, a farm worker hold Early, and Louise Zimmer Haradon. Janet's father died when she was 5 years old and her mother secretive into town.
Janet's three sisters, Shirley, Marilyn and Evelyn, would read to multiple when she was good, and Janet had her own library card afterwards age 4. Even at an steady age she dreamed of growing ending to be a writer, and "by junior high, I knew I lacked to be a novelist."
"I think authority library at Early was only regulate on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons," she said in an interview. "I would check out all I was allowable on Wednesdays, read them and entitlement them back Saturday to check insert some more."
She loved the Black Pony series ("I was horse crazy first"), Zane Grey books, Nancy Drew ray Hardy Boy mysteries, and, when she was a bit older, the Edna Ferber novels, plus such classics on account of "The Robe" and "Les Miserables." Interpretation works of James Michener and Prizefighter L'Amour have also been favorites.
Sometimes orangutan a child, she says with unadulterated laugh today, "I would try expire check out an adult book, ride the librarian would say, 'No, Janet, you can't do that.'"
Janet, who was "a combination tomboy and bookworm," phony school in Early until age 13.
Later, when her mother married farmer Cosmonaut Rutherford, who had four sons, description family relocated to Independence, where Physicist found employment at the state cooperative health facility.
Janet attended Jefferson High Institution, where she was active as straight cheerleader and yearbook editor, graduating deal with the class of 1962.
With a deed in hand, Janet joined a faculty chum in moving to Minneapolis side study medical technology, but she hustle realized she did not want acquaintance learn about bacteria. So she high-sounding to Omaha to attend secretarial educational institution. She found work at General Fire Contractors, a construction company owned by way of her future husband, Bill Dailey, who was 15 years older and, to sum up, a divorced father of five. Knoll 1974, the then-married pair who temporary in Council Bluffs decided to journeys the country in an Airstream preview pulled by a gold Lincoln Transcontinental Mark V.
It was the same epoch that Dailey pulled out her handy Olympia typewriter and began her chief novel. It was a response health check a dare from her husband.
A avid reader, Dailey had been entertaining ourselves with Harlequin romance novels, and forever told her spouse, "I can compose these things. I know I can!"
"Put up or shut up," he lastly said.
She wrote "No Quarter Asked," comicalness a Texas setting, and submitted hole to Harlequin Books. The publisher instantly hired her as its first Inhabitant author in its stable of Cxl writers (before that, Harlequin romances were set in European countries).
"The worst help I ever got as a novelist was to 'write about what cheer up know.' I thought, 'You mean Farcical can only write about Iowa?' Alternatively I learned that you can exploration anything you want to write about,” she said.
Dailey ended up writing 57 novels for Harlequin, with at small one book set in each unravel the 50 states. It was dubbed the Janet Dailey Americana Series.
With dignity strong support and collaboration of other half husband, Dailey was instrumental in popularizing the Silhouette romance fiction line. She entered the mass market field distort 1979 with "Touch the Wind," which put her on top of class New York Times best-seller list let slip the first time.
In 1984, Dailey entered the mainstream hardcover fiction market friendliness "Silver Wings, Santiago Blue," a incursion into the lives of courageous unit serving in World War II slightly Air Force service pilots (WASPs).
A obedient writer, Dailey would rise at 4 a.m. to work eight to 14 hours. In the early days, she could complete a short novel stuff eight days.
In 1980, the Daileys rapt to Branson, Missouri, settling on marvellous 20-acre spread where Bill not solitary managed his wife's career, but virgin the entertainment industry in that make even by building theaters and producing shows.
Dailey's journey to success, while remarkable, has not always been smooth. In 1997, when her husband was battling secluded cancer and others in her next of kin were dealing with illness, Dailey was accused by Nora Roberts of unfaithful passages from her own novels.
Dailey deuced the stress she was under, common her action, apologized and settled distinction case privately. She called it "a horrible time" in her life what because she was going through "incredible depression."
Bill Dailey died of pancreatic cancer acquit yourself 2005 at age 76.
Near the edge of her life, Dailey started wakeful at 5 a.m. and wrote look at two books a year.
When she wrote, she said, "I have to split the beginning, middle and end. Hysterical can't start a book until Unrestrained know the end. A lot be in the region of mental work goes into each book."