Trailblazers & Trendsetters: Iowa author Leigh Michaels wrote more than 100 books
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Rachelle Chase shines the spotlight on Iowans who are taking charge and making a difference in their own way in Trailblazers & Trendsetters, an occasional feature in the Des Moines Register.
Leigh Michaels (whose legal name is LeAnn Lemberger) is a successful author of more than 100 books. But that doesn’t stop the haters.
One time, a student from Des Moines' Drake University, her alma mater, was interviewing her for an article.
Michaels said, “The student said, 'My professor wanted me to ask this. She said you were star student when you were here.'”
And Michaels was. She had the highest grades of her graduating class in the journalism school and her name is engraved on a silver bowl there.
The student continued, stating that her instructor wanted to know, “Why you would waste your talent doing this, writing romance?"
Michaels replied, “Well, you go back to your professor and ask her what part of 35 million copies in print, 120 countries, 27 languages — what part of that she feels is a waste of my talent?”
The student didn't have an answer and Michaels doesn’t think she ever submitted the story.
On Aug. 19, Michaels joins four other Midwestern romance authors at Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave., Des Moines, from 1 to 3 p.m. for Bookstore Romance Day.
Michaels wrote her first romance in high school
Michaels wrote in an old stenographer’s notebook daily while she was in high school. Everything was fine until someone asked what she was doing.
“I said, ‘I'm writing a novel,’" Michaels said. “That landed in the school newspaper, which was a page in the local newspaper. It said, 'The freshman of this year are so bored and so blasé that one of them is writing a novel.'”
The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections & Archives has all of Michael’s manuscripts, including first and second drafts, revision letters, editorial comments, fan mail, speeches, notes and more. Michaels believes the collection spans 28 linear feet of shelving.
Missing is the book penned on the stenographer’s pad — along with the five she wrote afterward. Vowing to never let anyone see them, in her early 20s, she burned them.
Destiny launched her writing career
After majoring in journalism and graduating from Drake University in 1975, Michaels embarked on a journalism career in Ottumwa with plans to write fiction on the side.
But that didn’t happen.
After learning she was marrying staff newspaper reporter Michael W. Lemberger, the newspaper told her they wouldn’t hire couples. So she worked at a local radio station, then public relations, before fortuitously landing a position as a librarian at Ottumwa Public Library, where she remained until about 1983.
“Part of my job at the library was cataloging the romances that came in to be put on the shelves,” Michaels said. “I would speed read while I was cataloging them. I really enjoyed the stories, but they weren't telling my story.”
That spurred her to begin working on her seventh book. When she finished, unlike the previous six she'd burned, she believed this one was good.
After researching publishers, in November 1981, she mailed her book to the No. 1 romance book publisher: Harlequin in Toronto, Canada.
In February of 1982, her husband’s drinking landed him in the hospital.
“The day that we did the intervention on him I said, 'Look, I'm going back to school in the summer because I cannot support a family in the job that I'm in,'” Michaels said. “'I'm going back to school to get a master’s degree. It's up to you whether I move out and do that on my own or we stay married. But you have to get sober.'”
That night, while Michaels was on the phone with the director of the alcohol treatment, she heard a thud on her porch.
“It was my book,” Michaels said. “It was coming back from an office in London called Mills & Boon (Harlequin UK) that I had never heard of.” Inside was a letter. If she could make their recommended changes, they’d publish it.
To Michaels, it was a sign that the universe was looking out for her, that things would be OK.
Her husband chose to stop drinking.
Michaels pursued her master’s degree — for three hours. As her professor recited Chaucer in Middle English, she asked herself what she was doing there, when she had a book deal waiting at home. So she returned her books, dropped her classes, and started editing.
“I rewrote that book while we were in the in the process of his family treatment for alcoholism and I think that was part of the reason that it was successful because I really got in touch with my emotions and dug down deep during that treatment program.”
Her husband, a photographer, historian, archivist — and, according to Michaels, a packrat — never drank again and they remained married for 34 years, until he died in 2016.
That first book, "The Grand Hotel," was published in Australia, then in the U.S. several years later.
“By the time I had written four books, I could see that if I could write four a year, I didn't need to have a day job,” Michaels said. So she and her husband quit their jobs and became entrepreneurs.
For the next 15 or so years, Michaels wrote four books a year and became the main support of the family. About half of her books are set in small Midwestern towns and many are in Iowa.
More: Local favorite Beaverdale Books brings on a new co-owner to join founder Alice Meyer
After 80 Harlequin Romances, Michaels needed a change
“’Boy meets girl’ started getting a little bit tedious for me and I actually started thinking about ‘boy kills girl,’” Michaels said with a chuckle. “But that didn't work out. I can't seem to write mysteries.”
Michaels took some time off to determine what she wanted to write. She decided on Regency romances, full of lords and ladies, set in England between 1810 and 1820. To date, she's written 10 Regency novels and novellas.
“Midwestern values are throughout all of my books — and that includes the historicals,” Michaels said. “These are down-to-earth people. They have a good work ethic. They're Midwestern nice regardless of where they end up in my history or in geography. My people are all Midwestern at heart.”
Michaels teaches, coaches and writes books to help authors
Since there was no one to mentor her or helpful resources when she was writing her first books, Michaels resolved to help others.
She started teaching romance writing at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival in 1993. Then, she began teaching online, four terms a year at Gotham Writers Workshop, where she's only missed two terms in her 22 years.
More by Rachelle: Iowan Isaac Campbell uses wheat paste art to help free hostages, honor a nun, share history
Michaels also began writing textbooks after she started teaching and couldn’t find any.
"Writing the Romance Novel" is now in its fifth edition — an earlier edition was published by Writer’s Digest Books.
She wrote "Creating Romantic Characters" when she taught at B&N's online Barnes and Noble University.
She published "Writing Between the Sexes" after conducting seminars on the differences between men and women and how gender influences being able to write a character of the opposite sex.
“I've always been a mentor to other writers," Michaels said. "I've done my best to help them along the way with critiques and assistance and interpreting revision letters and making contacts." That has then morphed into more formal one-on-one coaching and editing services for authors.
Her noteworthy work continues
In 1994, Michaels and her husband also started PBL Limited, a book publishing company that focuses on local history and other niche-market books written by Michaels, her husband and other authors.
The library is still a part of Michaels’ life. She’s a member of the Advancement Council of the University of Iowa Libraries, a trustee of the Ottumwa Public Library, and most recently, president of the Ottumwa Public Library Foundation.
She loves her own library — loves walking into her office and seeing the shelves filled with her life’s work and knowing its impact on readers from their many emails and letters, like the hospice nurse who wrote, “After I spend my days with my dying patients, I come home and I want something upbeat to read. I love your books because of that.”
Or the adult children reading her book at the bedside of an ill parent who wrote, “As I was reading this book, I just felt your arms come round and hug me.”
“The way that that people react to my work is very, very satisfying and gratifying,” said Michaels.
For more information:
Learn about Leigh's books, coaching and editing services, and more at LeighMichaels.com
Learn more about Leigh's book publishing company, PBL Limited, at PBLLimited.com
Follow her Snarky Editor column at leighmichaels.substack.com
Follow Leigh on Facebook at facebook.com/leighmichaelsauthor
Take a class with Leigh at Gotham Writers' Workshop at writingclasses.com
Rachelle Chase is an author and an opinion columnist at the Des Moines Register who attended Leigh Michael's second Gotham Writers Workshop, became a published romance author thanks in large part to years of Leigh's instruction, and moved to Ottumwa because Leigh, now her friend, said, "I want to show you Buxton," knowing Rachelle wouldn't be able to resist moving to Iowa to write books about Buxton. Follow Rachelle at facebook.com/rachelle.chase.author.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Leigh Michaels is a bestselling and award-winning author of 100+ books
