Parris Afton Bonds

Parris Afton Bonds is an American historical romantic fiction novelist. She is the co-founder of Romance Writers of America.

Bonds started her professional writing career in the early 1970s with her first sale to ''Modern Secretary'' magazine, and in 1981 ''Time'' magazine called Bonds one of the many women who supplement their family income by writing romance novels. Her predominant genre is historical romance, but her works include other genres such as westerns, murder mysteries, sagas, and international thrillers. Bonds is a regular on bestseller lists and has been published in more than a dozen languages. ABC's ''Nightline'' heralded her as one of the three bestselling authors of romantic fiction in America.

She co-founded both Romance Writers of America, of which she was the first Vice President, and Southwest Writers Workshop. The Parris Award was established in her name by the Southwest Writers Workshop to honor published writers who give outstandingly of their time and talent to other writers. She has donated her time, teaching creative writing to female inmates and school children, both of whom she considers her captive audiences.

Bonds is named after Paris, Kentucky, where she was conceived, and the River Afton in Scotland. She was born in Tampa, Florida, and grew up in Oak Cliff, outside Dallas, Texas. ''Legendary Locals of Oak Cliff'' features Bonds in its chapter, "Creative Legends and Locals."

She is the author of more than fifty books and the mother of five sons, two of whom were born In Mexico City, where she lived in the early 1970s. Currently, she resides in Querétaro, Mexico. Writers who influenced Bonds early on were Dorothy Dunnett, Rafael Sabatini, Sergeanne Golan, Frank Yerby, Daphne du Maurier, Samuel Shellabarger, Jan Westcott, and Edna Ferber. Provided by Wikipedia