Cathy Geha asked Erica Ridley:

How many of your life experiences appear in your stories?

Erica Ridley Hi Cathy! What a great question. None of my life experiences directly appear in the stories, but the emotions I felt often do. For example, there's a scene in Let It Snow where the heroine has to let go of someone very important to her. I had lost my father the year before, so I didn't have to imagine the heroine's grief.

While I've never been as completely invisible as the heroine of The Captain's Bluestocking Mistress, I very much remember what it is like to wish for someone specific to notice me or take interest in me, and have it never happen. I think that's a universal sort of experience that a lot of readers can relate to, even if they've never been quite in her shoes.

Before becoming a full-time writer, I was a software programmer and database administrator for fifteen years. I was often the only woman in the room—even (or especially!) at tech conferences—and frequently had my opinion or expertise discounted solely because of my gender. In a similar vein, the heroine of The Major's Faux Fiancee desperately wants to dedicate herself something that simply wasn't done in her time period, much less by young ladies.

While we've managed to overcome some of the specific struggles Regency heroines must go through, I think a lot of life's experiences remain the same deep down, and I try to bring as much of that as I can to the page!

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