Betty Bolté

Members of the RWA Southern Magic chapter talk about the writer's life. Check it out at Romance Magicians

November 1, 2008 11 am Southern Magic Reader's Luncheon, featuring author Christina Dodd, Birmingham, AL (check their website for information)

May 2, 2009 Heart of Dixie Reader's Luncheon, Huntsville, AL (check the Heart of Dixie chapter website for information)

Career Overview

Currently, I am employed as a full time technical writer/editor for SAIC in Huntsville, Alabama. I was a freelance writer/editor from 1992 until March 2007.

As a freelance writer and editor, I worked for many corporations, including SAIC, MicroBased Resources, Rough Notes, Inc., Friends of Ft. Ward, and Prima Publishing. I also worked for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center on the ESAS Final Report in 2005.

My career began while working for the Department of Defense in Ft. Meade, Maryland, then I worked for BDM Corporation (McLean, Virginia) for a short period before settling with IBM Corporation (Gaithersburg, Maryland) for five years. In 1988 I resigned from IBM, after winning an award for an Outstanding Nontechnical role in coordinating a proposal effort, and began freelance word processing for several years. After relocating with my husband to Indiana, I turned to my first and continuing love of writing and editing.

The Writer's Life

In 1993 my husband and I were contributing authors in the Macmillan Publishing and Que Publishing's series on dBASE V: Killer dBASE V for Windows; Inside dBASE V for Windows; Using dBASE V for DOS; Using dBASE V for Windows.

Hometown Heroines (2001) is the result of eight years of research and writing. The book includes the true stories of 19 little-known American girls and young women of the 19th century who were all heroines in their own right. Girls, Inc. called these girls "kick butt girls" and the book has been recommended for women's studies classes as well as for use in middle and high school history classes.

Additionally, I wrote two books for Chelsea House's Horse Library series (2001), Dressage and Jumping. Each book introduces a type of equestrian sport, reflecting an interest I have maintained since I was a young girl.

Mason Crest Publishers contracted me to write two books about school clubs for their Cocurricular Activities series: Foreign Language Clubs: Discovering Other Cultures and Hobby Clubs: Sharing Your Interests, published in 2005.

Visit the My Works page for details on other key publications.

I have also written and published essays, a monthly newspaper column, and more than 55 general interest articles. I received an Honorable Mention award from Writers Digest's 2000 Writing Competition for my story "Minnie's Promise," one of the stories featured in Hometown Heroines, as well as an Honorable Mention for the book in the 2004 Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book contest.

Other genres that I enjoy reading and writing including romance, historical, suspense, and mysteries.

Education is the Key

In 1995, I graduated summa cum laude from Indiana University, with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Anthropology. While a student at IU, I received a 1995 International Study Scholarship to study British authors in Great Britain. I returned to college in 2006, attending the University of Alabama in Huntsville as a graduate student (under a full tuition scholarship from UAH) majoring in English literature. I graduated in August 2008.