Stephen A. Allen

Hi, I’m Sara Lee Allen! That’s me in the picture over there, smooching with my husband, IT guy. (IT as in Information Technology; he’s the one in charge of my web site. You can read about him on my blog.) It was taken on the happiest day of my life! (His too. Really! He just said so!)

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, attended James Madison High School, and then went on to earn both my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Brooklyn College. I taught junior high school up until my position was ‘terminated’ due to budget cuts.

I was the kind of kid who loved to read; I did it all the time. (Picture a little girl in bed, blanket pulled up over her head, reading Little House in the Big Woods by flashlight! I went on to read the entire series. In fact, I still have it packed away somewhere in the basement along with all my other childhood treasures. I wonder… When it’s late at night, do ‘Half-Pint’ and Nancy Drew pop out of their respective cartons, lay out my old Peter Rabbit set of dishes on a blanket, and have themselves a tea party?) When I wasn’t reading, I was spinning tales in my head. And that folks, is how I wound up being an author!

I also loved stuffed animals. In fact, I continue to have a soft spot in my heart for teddy bears; I have quite a collection! Chewie, short for Chewbacca Bear (my heroine’s childhood teddy) was inspired by Rusty, a bruin that I’ve had for over forty years. (Like Chewie, Rusty never divulges a secret, no matter how hard you tweak his ears!)

As you can tell from The Bargain, I’m mad about dogs, especially those with ‘attitude’! My last was a Miniature Schnauzer who would announce the arrival of the UPS truck by hopping up and down like she was on a pogo stick! She was a fierce little thing; no squirrel dared to steal a single sunflower seed from the Allen’s bird feeder!

Want to know just how ‘bad’ she was? Let me describe for you a typical visit to the vet. Mouse (clasped in my arms) is barking and yapping (all the while her stub of a tail is wagging like crazy) doing her very best imitation of Cujo. (And Mouse only weighed fourteen pounds, on a ‘fat’ day!) Unfazed by the ferocious display, the vet leans down and gives her a big, wet kiss…right on the schnoz! The tail stops mid wag. The ears droop. The face crumples. Poor Mouse, foiled again!

Nowadays I live in Michigan, in a suburb north of Detroit. Most mornings I can be found at my local Panera working on the next book in the series, A Tapestry of Memories. Please take a moment and visit me at www.saraleeallen.com for translations, recipes (submitted by my readers) and my oft-times funny blog!