I knew I was a writer when I was four years old and wrote a story about an electric horse I wanted to ride around the garden. A love for books and stories has been the foundation of my life, and I’ve never not been a writer. I grew up in Northern California (San Jose area), and attended UCLA as an undergraduate, where I thought I wanted to pursue a screenwriting career until I realized I preferred writing prose. I also became captivated by the visual storytelling in art. I majored in Art History and worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art before enrolling at UC Riverside for my master’s degree. I transferred to McGill University in Montreal, where I earned my PhD with a dissertation on Primitivism and Nationalism in late-19th and early-20th century French and Russian art.
After my Canadian student visa expired, I moved to Madison, WI, where my now-husband was attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. Since I’d have been a professional student, if possible, I ended up returning to grad school again for another master’s degree in Library and Information Studies at the UW. I’ve worked as a copyeditor, indexer, and transcriptionist. During that course of study, I got married, had my first child, and focused my writing more seriously on historical romances.
After writing for Grand Central under the name Nina Rowan for a few years, I branched out into self-publishing, writing sexy contemporary romances under the name Nina Lane. With my background in both publishing and writing, I've also edited for many authors through Carina Press / Harlequin Books. I currently work with American Girl, Chronicle Books, and several educational publishing companies.
