Diana Palmer (author)

Personal life

Born Susan Eloise Spaeth on December 12, 1946, in Cuthbert, Georgia, United States. She was the eldest daughter of Maggie Eloise Cliatt, a nurse and also journalist, and William Olin Spaeth, a college professor. She and her younger sister, Dannis Spaeth (Cole), were raised in Chamblee, Georgia, where Susan graduated from Chamblee High School in 1964. She grew up reading Zane Grey and fell in love with cowboys.

On 9 October 1972, she married to James Edward Kyle, with whom she had one son, Blayne Kyle in 1980. Their son married with Christina Clayton (Kyle), they are both graduates of Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, and live in Tennessee, and they have a daughter, Selena Marie Kyle, born in February 2009 and a son Donovan Edward Kyle born in September 2012. While thinking for a new story she remembered one of her friends from the past who had an amnesia after a car accident, which gave her a hint for a new twist.

At 54, she went back to college, inspired by her husband who quit his job to pursue his diploma in computer programming. She graduated summa cum laude from Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia, in 1995 with a major in history and a double minor in Archaeology and Spanish. She was named to two honor societies (the Torch Club and Alpha Chi), and was named to the National Dean's List. In addition to her writing projects, she was working on her master's degree in history at California State University where she plans on specializing in Native American studies.

She was a member of the Native American Rights Fund, the American Museum of Natural History, the National Cattlemen's Association, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Planetary Society, The Georgia Conservancy, the Georgia Sheriff's Association, and numerous conservation and charitable organizations. Her hobbies include gardening, archaeology, anthropology, iguanas, astronomy and music.

Writing career

She was a former newspaper reporter, with sixteen years experience on both daily and weekly newspapers, including the Gainesville Times and the now defunct Tri-County Advertiser in Clarkesville, Georgia, before began to write novels seriously. She began selling romance novels in 1979 to MacFadden Romance under the pseudonym Diana Palmer. In 1980, she wrote The Morcai Battalion, a science fiction novel as Susan S. Kyle, continued under the pseudonym Diana Palmer 28 years later. From 1982 to 1990, she wrote by Dell Publishing seven novels under the pseudonym Diana Blayne (her son's name). In 1984, she sold a novel by Silhouette Books under the pseudonym Katy Currie. She also used her married name, Susan Kyle, from 1988 to 1995 to sell seven romance novels to Warner Books.

Now, she only used her most popular pseudonym Diana Palmer and writes for three New York publishing houses: Mira Books (mainstream romances), Silhouette Books (contemporary series romances), and Fawcett Books (historical romances). She has over 150 books in print, more of them translated and published around the world.

Her novel Diamond Girl was made into a movie, released in 1998, for television.

Awards

Her awards include seven Waldenbooks national sales awards, four B. Dalton national sales awards, two Bookrak national sales awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for series storytelling from Romantic Times, several Affaire de Coeur awards, and two regional Romance Writers of America awards. In 1998, a Japanese Harlequin reader poll gave her Silhouette Desire novel, The Patient Nurse, its favorite book of the year award. She was listed in numerous publications, including Contemporary Authors by Gale Research, Inc., Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers by St. James Press, The Writers Directory by St. James Press, the International Who's Who of Authors and Writers by Meirose Press, Ltd., and Love's Leading Ladies by Kathryn Falk. She had also been awarded the Romantic Times 1992-1993 Career Achievement Award Winner for series storyteller of the year. She had also been invited to speak at Romance conventions; Palmer presented a session topic, Moving from Series Romance to Mainstream Romance, at the 9th annual Harriet Austin Writers Conference in 2002. In 2012, her alma mater, Piedmont College gave her the award of Distinguished Alumni for her contributions to the field of literature.