Romance author LaVyrle Spencer was born in Browerville, Minnesota in 1944. While working as a teacher's aide at Osseo Junior High School, she started writing her first novel, The Fulfillment, which was published in 1979. She has written more than a dozen novels that have hit the New York Times bestseller list, and many of her works have been condensed for Reader's Digest and Good Housekeeping. She has won five Romance Writers of America RITA Awards for her novels The Endearment (1983), Hummingbird (1984), Twice Loved (1985), The Gamble (1988), and Morning Glory (1990). In 1988, she was inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. Many of her novels have been made into… televison movies including The Fulfillment, Home Song, and Family Blessings and the major motion picture Morning Glory. She retired from writing in 1997 because she met her finanical goal. She lives with her husband in Stillwater, Minnesota.