Ro Davis knew she would be a writer before she could write. At three, she inscribed the front page of every book in the house with a wavy line autograph. She says, "I write to tell myself a story I want to hear. My first love, as a reader and a writer, is fantasy fiction. I began, as many do, with Tolkien. I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1973 while in college in New York City. I was completely absorbed in Middle Earth, had to be reminded to eat and sleep. "The story in those four books was like nothing else I'd read before. I set to work at once on my own story. I began with a map. It looked a lot like California. I made a list of characters with too clever names: the spirited heroine was Gamina and her mother was Cucina. I had a vague notion of a plot involving a teenaged sister and brother on a danger-filled quest to learn the secrets of their people's history. I delved into research about lost continents and vanished races, which led me so deep into a labyrinth of pseudo-science, folklore, and New Age religions that I neglected to write the book." There have been many, many stories since then, with detours into the techno-thriller, romance, and mystery genres. In the early 90's, she returned to her original, Tolkien-inspired concept. Several million words and a dozen of versions later, the story evolved into an epic tale of kings and priests, sorcerers and zealots, set in a land where the gods once lived among men. The novel Starpriest was a finalist in the 2003 Jack London Writing Contest. It has caught the interest of an editor at Tor Books. During breaks from the world of Starpriest, Ro has completed two other novels. Soulmates is contemporary fiction with, wouldn't you know, a touch of magical realism. Dancing in Time is a time travel piece. A fourth novel, in progress, is magic-free, historical fiction, based on the life of the 18th century Italian composer, Antonio Vivaldi, an ordained priest, and the women who loved him. In addition to writing, Ro squeezes in time for her day job, commercial satellite lauch operations for Space Systems Loral. She is an avid cook and gardener, and a weekend warrior in the home renovation game. She is also Webmaster for the CWC state organization, the San Francisco / Peninsula branch, and South Bay Writers, and she also serves several individual clients, most of them authors. She lives with her husband, Jim, in the Santa Cruz Mountains in a house with seven gables, built beneath a 500-year-old oak, surrounded by redwoods, dryads, and Druids.
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