There’s romance in the air for Tigard writer Darcy Burke

Burke was recently named a finalist in the Regency Historical category of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest for her manuscript 'Glorious'

By Kristen Forbes

The Times, Jun 19, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Darcy Burke’s romance novel manuscript, “Glorious,” has garnered a number of awards and attracted the attention of a literary agent.

Submitted photo / For Times Newspapers

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“I just always wanted to write something,” Tigard’s Darcy Burke says.

So, write something she did. Burke was recently named as a finalist in the Regency Historical category of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest for her manuscript “Glorious.”

This is the same manuscript that was a finalist in the Winter Rose, OVRWA Summer Sizzle and Maggies contests in 2007. She won in the “Spicy” category at OVRWA and earned a second place Maggies award at the Moonlight and Magnolias conference. This is also the same manuscript that landed her a literary agent — Barbara Collins Rosenberg of the Rosenberg Group.

Burke became interested in history while growing up in Aloha. As a teen, she began reading historical romance novels and got hooked. After earning her history degree (with a focus on British history), Burke worked as a technical writer for banking and high tech industries.

Then, she received news that her acting teacher from high school had died.

“She had a pretty big impact on my life,” Burke says. “So when she passed away, I went to her funeral. And I saw my English teacher from high school, and I hadn’t seen her in maybe 10 years. I told her what I was doing, thinking she’d be really excited that I was a writer – a tech writer, anyway. And she said, ‘What are you doing behind the computer? You’re a people person!’”

Burke took the comment to heart and got into project management, but later re-evaluated.

“She was right, to a point. But I think that’s kind of a misnomer that all writers are introverted. There are plenty of writers who are extroverted. And I really think that extroversion works with writers because you really connect with a whole bunch of people when you write something.”

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