Isabel Vandervelde

I am 82 years old this year, born in South Dakota in 1930. I married at age 20, as a college student at SDSU in Brookings. My husband graduated with an MS in nuclear physics, and a BS in nuclear engineering. By the time we moved down here to Aiken, SC where he was hired by DuPont at the Savannah River nuclear plant we had three small children, and we had three more born in Aiken. I went back to college at USC-Columbia receiving my Bachelors Degree summa cum laude in Creative Writing. I immediately sold a novel, LACE,which I had begun as an independent studies project, to Fawcett, and used the money they paid me to get my MA in Theatre in 1980. I worked for the University Theatre Department designing and painting sets for about ten years years. I also did a lot of Theatre in Aiken, singing in many musicals, and my favorite thing was playing Vladimir in the local University Branch's all female production of "Waiting for Godot." I also taught Creative Writing classes at the Aiken Center for The Arts, as well as Rose Hill Art Center. I have worked at art, establishing my own professional art studio, Isabel's Art Studio, and then adding books as I began publishing them, under my logo as Art Studio Press. I concentrated first on real history books, and genealogy of local interest. And now, having been widowed and recuperating from long illness, I am publishing my historical novels, enjoying the research, the labor of writing, and the fun of being involved with fictional characters whom I can create to please myself.