A few years ago, a friend challenged Vicki Batman to write the first line of a story, inspired by one word: “window”. “It just stumped me,” she says. “I couldn’t come up with anything.” So she went home, sat down at the computer and started writing. Next thing Batman knew, she had eight chapters of a novel, “Temporarily Employed”. Since that day, Batman has written three romance/murder mystery novels. And over the past year and a half, she’s sold 14 pieces to short story magazines. Those are romances, too. “Some of it is bad date stuff that really happened to me,” she says. “Like, I really did get a Dear John letter on Valentine’s Day.” That’s an anecdote in “Valentine’s Hell”, a story appearing this month in “True Love” magazine. Batman, who lives in Lakewood, raised kids with her husband and always liked to write. But she became serious about it after her kids were grown. About five years ago, she joined the Dallas Area Romance Authors group, and that’s how she learned to submit stories and become a better writer. “It exposes you to so much more as a writer,” she says. Batman hasn’t sold her novels yet, but she’s working on it. She sits down to write at 10 a.m. every day, and she works at least four hours. She is a Lakewood Library Friends board member, and this month, she invited two other romance authors — Lorraine Heath and Pamela Stone — to join her in the library’s book review series. The event, “Love is in the Air”, is at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21, at the Lakewood Library, 6121 Worth. By the way, romance author Vicki Batman will never need a nom de plume. That is her real name.
Find information about Vicki Batman and the Dallas Area Romance Authors at vickibatman.blogspot.com and dallasromanceauthors.com.
