Larissa Ione's Bio
Many writers will tell you they began writing stories the moment they learned to wield a pencil. Larissa is no exception. But even as a child, she didn't write "kid" stories. She preferred something more dramatic. When other girls her age were reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and Judy Blume, Larissa was immersing herself in Stephen King and Jack London.
Considering her fiction preferences, it came as no surprise to anyone that her first short stories were tales of horror, and her first novel, penned at the age of 12, was an Alaskan wilderness story with a wolf hero.
Eventually, Larissa's interests changed. She still enjoys a good Stephen King novel, and Jack London remains a favorite, but she discovered some new favorites while she was in college. Robert Jordan. Marion Zimmer Bradley. Mary Stewart. Oh yes, she'd found fantasy. Larissa devoured every novel she could find, and in time she started writing her very own fantasy novel. That novel is still a work in progress, thirteen years later.
After she'd read just about every fantasy novel published, she had to switch to something else. That something else was straight historical fiction. Again, she exhausted her supply, but her longtime friend from her Air Force days, Karen, came to the rescue with something she never thought she'd read. Something Larissa made fun of her friend for reading.
She made Larissa read historical romance.
Thus began a passion for passion itself. Larissa wanted to write romances, and she wanted to see them in print. To help fulfill that dream, she joined RWA, writers' lists and critique groups. In order to build up some writing credits, Larissa worked on some military and National Weather Service technical manuals. As her writing improved, she began to sell her work to print magazines like The Canine Journal and Dog Fancy, and to online publications such as Writing-World.com.
It was in February of 2006, while in the middle of recovering from hurricane Katrina (and after nearly giving up on writing) that Larissa made her first sale to Red Sage Secrets. A couple of weeks later, the sale was followed by a sale to Bentam Dell with her collaboration partner, Stephanie Tyler. They write together under the pseudonym of Sydney Croft.
Larissa also sold a series of dark paranormal romances to Warner, a sale that was extremely satisfying because she was finally able to combine her love of romance with the darkness that creeps into her voice, thanks to her youthful and still-present love of horror novels and dark fantasy. This sale also cemented her ability to write full time, a dream come true because of her husband's Coast Guard career and frequent moves. In March of 2009, the second book of this series hit the USA Today Bestseller list, and in April, the third book, Passion Unleashed, hit both the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists.
Larissa has also written for Samhain Publishing.
© Used with Larissa Ione's permission. Do not distribute this information without asking for permission first.
