Clare Willis is an American author. As a child she lived in California, England (she holds a dual citizenship) and Italy. Later she has lived in Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Now she lives in San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two sons. Clare writes with her two dogs: a cockapoo named Mocha and a terrier mix shelter puppy called Riley.
Her first own play "The Stepsisters" (a retelling of the Cinderella story) was performed by her fourth grade class at Parents' Night. During college at UC Santa Cruz she took creative writing classes, but succumbed to the convincing argument that she needed a "real job" to fall back on and added an elementary education minor. She taught for several years, earned two masters degrees in education, and worked in educational research and curriculum development.
After she married and had her first child, Clare became a stay-at-home mom, and found story ideas coming to her during the quiet hours when the baby was asleep. She wrote four books and numerous short stories. Several of her short stories were published, but it took ten years and many rejections before her first book (literally her first) was picked up by Kensington Press and she was signed to a two-book contract.
Clare has loved the paranormal world, especially vampires, since she read "Interview with a Vampire" in 1976. By using vampires as a metaphor for the struggle between good and evil in the world and in each individual, Anne created an irresistible paradigm that writers could work in, seemingly forever. It also made a great metaphor for forbidden lust, and as any parent knows, once something is forbidden it becomes irresistible...
