Bringing History to Life, On My Own Terms

Hi, I'm Heather E. F. Carter, the historical romantic fiction author of The Black Uncicorn series. And I am also known in the Vampire Fiction World Heather Ewen-Foster...

“Wait a minute, you’re doing what now?”

I’m at lunch with my mom. I’ve just told her I’m leaving my PhD program after five years.

“People are not going to like this,” she says.

I wonder what people, but I don’t press her. I’ve said what I needed to say. I am leaving UCLA.

That was in 2011. What were my reasons for leaving a program I fought so hard to get into? Well, it’s complicated. I had many reasons. I guess the top two were that I wanted to have a baby, and I wanted to write novels, not a dissertation. I achieved both.

School was not easy for me growing up, but I hit my stride in Community College. I was a musician, a flutist, and as soon as I changed my major from music to history, everything just seemed to fall into place. The girl with the shockingly low GPA in high school got into every university program she applied to. I chose UCLA because it was, I suppose, my dream school since high school. They had a great music program, which I fixated upon when I was sixteen. Now twenty, I was equally fixated upon it. And indeed, they had a great history program too.

And so I began collecting degrees. First a Bachelors in general history from UCLA. Then a Masters in medieval history from California State University at Fullerton. Then back to UCLA for a Masters and a PhD. I stayed until I advanced to candidacy, and then left to the astonishment of everyone in my program, professors included.

“Are you okay,” one of my favorite professors asked when I told him I was leaving.

Well, yes and no. I was burned out on school. I was looking for something new to do, and I found it when I decided to write a novel during my fourth year. I chose vampires living in Los Angeles because I could write that while still in school. My vampires required very little from me in the way of research. I wrote most of Moon Flower: Vampires of Los Angeles off the top of my head. The dream sequences and the opal carving bits required me to delve a little into the library, but not much.

And so I left UCLA. I got a job managing the Children’s Department at Barnes and Noble and I continued to write. The Black Unicorn, set in eighteenth-century Yorkshire, was my next baby.

And speaking of babies, I had two. Twins; a boy and a girl. And so I began a whole new adventure. And quite a ride it has been, let me tell you. And in between dirty diapers and play dates at the playground, I published The Black Unicorn. And once they were in elementary school, I published Moon Flower. And so I live my life now, shuttling kiddos around to their various activities and writing. Writing novels, writing short stories, writing blogs, and writing newsletters. I also edit all the online content for my husband’s company. And so I am busy.

And that’s me in a nutshell. I am Heather E.F. Carter, the historical romantic fiction writer, and Heather Ewen-Foster, the contemporary Vampire fiction writer.