author RJ Minnick

RJ Minnick was born in the Capital District region of New York State. The youngest of five girls, she spent her childhood in a centralized school district on a farm that grew – when it grew anything – Christmas trees. At 11 she wrote her first long piece of fiction: 11 pages of cramped handwriting, single-spaced on notebook pages. The ink from the ballpoint pen kept smudging.

She went to the State University of New York at Oswego in the days Al Roker was a student there; she knew him as a college station DJ and a guy who sat desk in the dorm where she was a Resident Assistant. She says, though, that he wouldn’t remember her. Her major was sociology, and she knew she was destined for great things in that field. What she was actually destined for was time spent in several diverse jobs in a total of 5 states, marriage to husband Dave, 6 kids, …and writing.

After turns in Maryland, Vermont, and back in New York, she and Dave headed for Nashville, Tennessee. Dave worked and she stayed home to raise their family (totaling 4 girls and 2 boys)…and write.

RJ and Dave collaborated on software reviews for some national magazines – Compute! and Compute!s GAZETTE –  and then expanded into feature articles for local and national magazines. She also worked on fiction and some local reporting. As the kids grew older, RJ became involved in the local schools, coaching writing via workshops and sponsoring a school newspaper..and writing.

A move to North Carolina (chronicled in  Blackwater Tales ), enabled her to focus more on writing. She’s spent 3 years contributing to ARRAY Magazine, a local lifestyle magazine in Fayetteville, even while working as a parish administrator at a local church. During these years she’s launched her romantic mystery series, the Mackenzie Wilder/Classic Boat mysteries, and another novel, REMAINDER .  She is currently at work on the fourth Mackenzie Wilder book, a mainstream novel, and a Christmas epic, RENEGADE CHRISTMAS.