Biography

As a U.S.-German dual citizen I was born and raised in Germany. In 1987, my degree in marketing brought me to the U.S. where I worked for Residence Inn hotels. Only three weeks into my one-year assignment, I went to a Super bowl party and met my future husband. Less than a year later, we married and most everyone at the wedding gave us a year or two at the most.

Our family minus my daughter who studies in Germany

Three beautiful children and twenty-three years later I believe we proved them wrong. My career aspirations cut short with child rearing, dog training and chicken raising in three states, I dabbled in real estate and investments as a financial adviser before landing at the largest PR/advertising company in Indiana. Finally back in marketing and communications, I discovered how much I enjoyed writing.

In 2002 I decided to record my parents’ stories from WWII and preserve them for our family. Their childhood experiences were a tale of survival with more colorful characters than fiction and fantasy can create, including my grandmother Luise who was entertaining men while her husband fought in the war. Or the horse my father slaughtered at the age of fifteen.

Armed with this information, I soon embarked on filling in the blanks by inventing dialog, characters and adventure. The stories grew quietly until I attended the first fiction writing workshop at Indiana University. We submitted short stories to class and our instructor. To my surprise, the class and my instructor were full of praise.

With renewed energy, I decided to finish the stories and work with an editor. Months and several workshops later, I completed the third draft and more rounds of edits before attending the Midwest Writers Conference at Ball State University. It was to say the least an eye opener. Rather than hide in my closet and type away, I learned that I have to talk, blog and tweet while morphing into the author persona I so aspire to become.

Guenter & Annette

I am ready.