Diane Chamberlain
Diane Chamberlain loves to write about relationships -- between men and women, parents and children, sisters and brothers. She creates complex plots with twists and surprises for her readers, and her stories are sure to tug at the emotions.
Although she's always had a love of reading and writing, her background is in social work and psychology. She has a masters degree in Clinical Social Work from San Diego State University, and worked as a medical social worker for several years in San Diego and Washington, DC before opening a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in adolescents. She reluctantly closed her practice in 1992 when she realized that she could no longer split her time between her two careers and be effective at both of them.
She started writing her first novel in 1981, while she was working as a social worker in a hospital. She claims that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing as a writer, and that her lack of experience showed in the book she finally completed in 1985. With a good deal of hard work and the guidance of an agent, she was able to rework the story into one she could be proud of. PRIVATE RELATIONS sold in 1986, but wasn't published until 1989. Since 1989, she's written and published nearly one book a year.
Diane won the RITA award for Private Relations. Her sixth novel, Brass Ring, won the best contemporary novel award from Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine. She was also the recipient of the RT career achievement award in 1993 and again in 2001 for contemporary fiction.
Diane was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey and has lived for long periods of time in San Diego and now in Virginia. She has three grown stepdaughters, a couple of sons-in-law and an eight-year-old, three-legged Bernese Mountain Dog, Bruin.
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