Robb handle, she began writing romantic suspense novels, the first being published in 1995. Robb, to allow her new publisher, Putnam Publishing, to publish more of her work each year. Writing more than 20 novels for Silhouette, she was encouraged to begin writing under a pseudonym, J.D. She found success with the newly formed Silhouette Publishing with her first novel, Irish Thoroughbred, being published in 1981. She soon had six completed manuscripts that she submitted, without success to, Harlequin Publishing, being rejected multiple times. Snowed in, she began to put ideas to paper, and these notes soon became a manuscript for what would become a later novel. The impetus for writing came during a heavy snowstorm in the year 1979. Still not writing, she spent most of her time caring for her two sons and doing crafts. Married for the first time in the summer of the same year, she settle in Keedysville, Maryland with her first husband, who worked at a family business. Having no formal training as a writer, and no tertiary education, she also never wrote for pleasure throughout school, though she has described herself as being a wonderful storyteller, and inventing stories and fabrications, some of which are still believed by her mother today. She was raised Irish Catholic, and attended Catholic School until her sophomore year, when she transferred to Montgomery Blair Public High School, from which she graduated in 1968. Nora Roberts was born Eleanor Marie Robertson in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1950. Her books have explored the depth of human emotion, while still being paragons of storytelling and the art of drama. She has been lauded as being one of the most prolific authors of the late 20th century, and has has penned more than 80 bestsellers under various pseudonyms. Nora Roberts is an Irish-American author of more than 200 romance, romantic thriller, and romantic science fiction novels, and one of the most respected and recognizable writers still working today.