Melanie Hauser

Hailing from the Hoosier state (where I grew up in the shadow of the Indianapolis 500 racetrack), I'm a late bloomer who is just now figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. Having tried my hand at telemarketing, candy striping for a nursing home and acting under my maiden name, Melanie Miller (Most Academy Award-Worthy Performance: The title role, complete with bear costume, in the gut-wrenching exploration of good touch/bad touch entitled "What's the Matter, Little Bear?"), I put everything on hold in order to marry, have two children, and spend my time making sure they didn't stick their fingers in electrical sockets. (Both the husband, and the children.) I put in a brave couple of years with the PTA, driving my sons to soccer practices, track meets and orthodontist appointments. In short, I was in training to become Super Mom.

At an age when many women throw themselves back into their careers after raising their children, I looked around and realized I never had one in the first place. So I turned to the one thing I did know: Books. So I wrote one. It stank. I buried it out in my backyard, next to the compost heap. I wrote another book. It didn't stink quite so much; still, nobody wanted to publish it. I wrote another book. It stank the least of all, and led to my current, wonderful literary agent, but still it went unpublished. Then I wrote CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM. So far, nobody has said that it stinks. In fact, so many people like it that I wrote the sequel, to be published in 2007. And finally, at long last, I have a career. (And old men in nursing homes everywhere breathe a huge sigh of relief.)