Aileen Wen - Debbie Macomber: A Biography

"I believe romance readers want to know more about the authors because they consider us friends. They relate to us through the stories and characters."

Debbie Macomber has developed a very close and intimate relationship with her readers because she is just like them in almost every way that matters. Debbie writes about people we know, telling stories about life experiences we all share. Readers relate to Debbie because she has experienced the full gamut of emotions: love, happiness, and profound sorrow. She has endured hardships and found successes. She has seen life both at its best and worst. Debbie's fans know this about her, and they have responded accordingly, buying more than 140 million copies of her novels around the world and keeping her constantly on the bestseller list.

Debbie understands that her readers want to be close to her and get to know her better. She knows the importance of maintaining a close relationship with her readers, and she does this through her website, blog updates, and Facebook page. Debbie also maintains a mailing list of some 140,000 readers with whom she corresponds regularly. For Macomber, these are not simply acts of self-promotion. She cares about her readers, and they care about her. Reading a book by Debbie Macomber is like spending time in the company of a good friend.

Debbie Macomber is an incredibly positive and upbeat individual, and this comes through clearly in her novels. She writes a Christmas novel every year, which promotes the joy of celebrating the season with family and loved ones. Many of her books focus on relationships between friends, valuing what is important in life. This is a lesson Macomber herself has learned the hard way. As a child growing up with dyslexia, she struggled to read and to succeed academically. In her marriage and through raising her children, she went through the same kinds of things every parent does.

Even after she finally found success, Debbie did not forget what mattered in life. In 2007, for example, she faced the issue of aging parents and made the decision to put her mother into an assisted living facility to live out her final years. She wove that experience into the book Susannah's Garden. Tragically, on August, 2011, Debbie experienced one of the most profound and horrible life events in her life when her youngest son committed suicide after suffering from depression for years. When it comes to writing about real life, relationships, and what really matters, Debbie Macomber knows what she is talking about.

Debbie Macomber admits to three main passions: writing, her family and grandchildren, and knitting. Time spent with family and grandchildren is especially precious. Even with her extremely busy writing schedule, Debbie sets time aside to go on road trips with her husband. Her grandchildren are the beneficiaries of a specially built backyard tree house and go on regular adventures with their grandma, or Grandma Camps.

Debbie's passion for knitting has expanded into a sub-industry which includes knitting books, a specialty store, and a custom yarn line. Whether it is a romance novel, an adult relationship novel, a book about knitting, or a cookbook, she gives it her all. Everything Debbie Macomber does, she adds a little something special to make it unique and standout. She manages to give importance to even the most commonplace things of life, and this is evidenced by the theme of her website : "Wherever you are, Debbie takes you home"

Perhaps that is the most important lesson Debbie Macomber conveys through her books and her own example. If you value even the most ordinary, everyday aspects of your life, you will be able to successfully manage any trials and tribulations that come your way, and you will find contentment and peace.

Debbie Macomber, nee Adler, was born October 22, 1948 in Yakima, Washington. She grew up in Port Orchard, Washington, a small town in a close-knit community, with other family and cousins living nearby. Her grandmother was an excellent cook, and her mother loved to garden. Debbie was raised with deep spiritual and religious beliefs, and was surrounded by traditional family values.

Debbie knew she wanted to write stories when she was still in grade school, but she kept the dream to herself, afraid of ridicule. Part of her hesitancy was because she is dyslexic, something she did not understand until two of her children were diagnosed with the same learning disorder. Debbie only knew that academics and learning to read was a great effort. In first grade she was the only girl put into the slow reader group. It wasn't until fifth grade that she managed to catch up with others in reading, and she never excelled in school. She did manage to finish high school, but it was a difficult experience. Debbie developed a circle of good friends, however, who helped her cope, and who served as the basis for her later stories about the power of friendship.

When Debbie was around 11 or 12 years old, she saw someone knitting and decided she wanted to learn. Although no one in her family was a knitter, a new passion was born. She pestered her mother until her mom finally took her to a yarn store, where Debbie learned the basic concepts of knitting. Her very first project was a sweater vest for her mother, which she admits was a highly amateur effort. Years later, after her mother had passed away and Debbie was sorting through her mother's possessions, she was profoundly touched to discover that her mother had kept that sweater her whole life.

Debbie always wanted to write, but people put her down as a hopeless dreamer. Although both her parents supported her and were proud of her, no one except Debbie herself believed she had the ability to actually write a book. After graduating from high school, Debbie moved to Seattle and settled into a large house with seven other girls. One Saturday night she was dressed for a date when her boyfriend called and canceled at the last minute. The other girls were all out on dates, and Debbie was home alone when the phone rang. A young man named Wayne Macomber was calling for one of the other girls. Debbie explained that she was out. Undaunted, Wayne asked, "Are you doing anything?" She accepted his invitation to go see the movie To Sir with Love. A year later they were married.

She and Wayne started a family and soon had four children: Jenny, Adele, Ted, and Dale. In a 2009 blog post, Debbie recalls the birth or her youngest son, Dale:

"Although it was late afternoon, Wayne was hoping we could wait until after midnight so we wouldn't be charged for a full day's hospital stay. Because money was tight in those days, I tried my best to wait. Needless to say, Dale foiled our cost-cutting plans. Truth be known, we were fortunate to make it to the hospital in time. With Dale we completed our family two girls and two boys."

Finally at age 30, as a full-time stay-at-home mother busy raising her four young children, Debbie was motivated to start her first book after a death in the family. She saved enough money to rent a typewriter and set it up on the kitchen table. The children were all actively involved in sports, music, scouts, and church, so Debbie did most of her writing at night after the children were finally asleep. Each day, she packed up the typewriter and put everything away when it was time to make meals.

She quickly realized that she didn't know much about writing a novel, so she put some thought into how to structure a novel correctly. She selected several of her favorite romances and dissected them to create an outline, which she then followed in writing her own. For two and a half years she wrote, accumulating thousands and thousands of pages. Each time she sent her manuscripts in, they were returned marked "reject." Although her husband Wayne was supportive and encouraging, even he finally said it could not go on any longer. Their budget was tight, and her writing was costing them a hundred dollars a month. He suggested that the only way they could make ends meet was if Debbie got a job that actually paid money.