To say I lead a double life is putting it mildly. Everything about me could be a contradiction.

City girl and country girl: I was the city girl who grew up in a small town, literally. We moved from San Jose, California, where my biggest kick was shopping with my friends and ice-skating at the indoor rink when I was 13, to a 75-acre sheep ranch on the edge of the small town of Sutherlin, Oregon, which had a smaller population for the entire town than the congregation at my church in the Bay area. My high school graduating class was under 100 people.


A budding writer even in preschool. Mom would have rather I used the crayons on the paper than the walls.
 The writer who was journalist, publicist and novelist: I never intended to either write books or be in public relations, they both sort of happen as an extension of my love of writing. My experience in the publishing industry is varied. I started out writing on the school newspaper in junior high, more as a dare by my boyfriend when I wanted to prove that anything he could do, I could do just as well. From the moment I saw my first article in print, I was hooked. My first short story, “My Mother Unusual in a Normal Sort of Way” was published by Merlin’s Pen in 1987. I wrote for the paper all through high school and into college. Then I worked at a daily newspaper where I became the “messenger of death” from the day editor to the night editor . . .and I was too afraid that the cliché kill the messenger might turn into a reality, so I quit, got married to my high school sweetheart at 19 and started college, focusing on mass communications.

I began dabbling with a story in my head, but even after paying for a Writers Digest Course, didn’t manage to finish it and stuck it away. I started work in public relations for a big corporation and then for the largest agency in Arizona. Meanwhile the writing bug wouldn’t shut up. I joined Romance Writers of America in 1993, took out the story that wouldn’t leave me alone, and decided to finish it. Along the way I quit working at the agency because of my daughter’s birth and started magazine freelancing to help make ends meet. Since then, I’ve kept writing more stories.

The mother who would bear children in Arizona, but didn’t raise them there: When my son was born (both of my kids were born at home with a midwife, but that’s another whole story), we lived in Phoenix, Arizona.  Not too long after they were born we decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest to raise our kids “back home” where they could stuff their faces with wild blackberries from the yard, play mud babies (no explanation needed, just imagine mud and naked children laughing and rolling in it) and enjoy nature at it’s finest, even if it does happen to be all cottontail rabbits that eat the vegetable garden.

The Italian American: I’m certainly proud to be an American, but I’m also fiercely aware of my Italian heritage. My grandmother, who’s still alive, kicking and raising hell, grew up in Sicily until she was 14. My father’s entire side of the family didn’t even make it to the USA until the 1900s. Me? I’m the only one on that side of the family with blonde hair and blue eyes, but everyone tells me I’m just like my grandmother; even the cousins in Sicily that I went to see in 2004. I’m planning on going back again, soon, but this time I’m learning how to speak Italian first! There’s nothing like Italy.


A glimpse of history as I get a quick snapshot against the columns in the courtyard at the ruins of the Roman villa "Erculia" in Piazza Armerina in Morantina, Italy. Amazing mosaics!

 


My Sicilian grandmother, Helena Jane Palmeri (called Palmer in the USA) at age 16. Do you see where I get my sass from?

 


My cousin Rosanna took a quick snapshot of me outside the famous Teatro Politeama Garibaldi (or Theater Political Garibaldi) in Palermo dedicated to the memory of General Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the great Italian revolutionaries who, in 1870, helped unite Italy into one country for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire.
From writer to publicist and back again: So how exactly did I go from being a writer to a publicist and back again? I was writing on my books and doing pr on the side for restaurants, small businesses, hotels and the like. A dear friend, (Cherry Adair, love her books) asked me to do some publicity work on her upcoming book and I agreed – but told her, I don’t publicize books. From that one incident, a new business was created. It morphed into Blue Moon Communications, a public relations firm focused on promoting fiction authors, which is best know for getting their clients selected as two of the seven picks of the Kelly Ripa Book Club on LIVE! With Regis and Kelly. (You can find me at my day job at www.bluemooncommunications.com.) Now I work two jobs, publicity and writing the books, well, three if you count being a mom.

Here's one of the most famous mosaics. Notice that chicks even had bikins in Roman times?
Like I said, a life full of contradictions, but hey I’m a Gemini, which pretty well sums it all up.

Fun Facts about Theresa

Name if I had been born a boy — Angelo Sauro
Favorite Color – Tanzanite blue (also known as periwinkle blue)
Astrological sign – Gemini

Chocolate: The Exhibition
Ah, chocolate. What more can be said? Fabulous exhibit! Want to know where it's at now? click here.
Favorite Flavor ice cream – Are you serious? I have to pick one??? I have friends that own an ice cream parlor, it changes all the time.
Favorite Vice – Chocolate!  
Favorite TV Show – Desperate Housewives  
Number of Kids – Two, one of each. My daughter is 10 going on 16 and my son is 9 and likely to stay there awhile.  
Married – Yes! I married the first man I went on a date with…really! Ok, so the date was his Junior Prom and I was a sophomore and my brother had to ride in the back seat between us while my parents drove. But he still married me, and we’ve been together longer than half my life!
Favorite way to waste a day – High cost option: The spa. Nothing beats getting a facial, massage, pedicure and hair cut and having someone else make a meal and do the dishes! Especially if you go with a friend! Low cost option: Watch movies with my friends, my daughter and make cookies!
Favorite Sports - Scuba diving, I’ve been certified for open water diving for over 15 years.  I also love riding horses and riding with my kids on my four-wheel ATV. (You know it’s mine because it’s white with hot pink flames on the seat and a big pair of red lips on the fender!)  My other favorite hobbies include gardening, sewing and what my friends call being "Martha" in the house and garden.

Yes, that's the ATV and my son at the Oregon coast, waiting for mom 
to give him a ride.  
Exercise – I do not, repeat do not, run. Not even for chocolate. I walk with my friends, and do The Firm tapes when I want to truly punish myself.  
First Romance Book I read – Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt  
Favorite Authors to read – Cherry Adair, Nancy Martin, Arnette Lamb, James Rollins, Julia Quinn, J.K. Rowling, Sharron McClellan, Jennifer Crusie, Deborah Donnelly.