About Stephanie
In the Beginning
I began writing my first novel when I was 21 years old, a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia. At first, the story was for recreational purposes and was meant to only live in my computer but after researching how to publish a novel, I decided that I wanted to release my masterpiece to the world.
In 2005, I decided that I was going to self-publish my books through my own company, so I started Independence Publishing , TLR (IPTLR). The publishing company was not only a dream come true but the name represented the ideology that I wanted to showcase through my novels.
It All Started at the Library
Before I started working on my own story, I used to visit the local library near my apartment at VCU. I would use my library membership to check out as many romance novels as I possibly could. At the time, the library used to allow for a maximum of ten books to be checked out at a time. So I would get my ten, read them all as quickly as possible and go back the next day to get a fresh set of ten. Within months I had read every romance novel in the library. I was so filled up on reading everyone else’s story that I decided to write my own.
Explore My Writing
Finding My Passion
As I began pouring my storyline onto paper, the one thing I realized when reading the romance titles in the library, was that I was crazy about the stories – where the women were equals with their love interests. I thought the best romances were not necessarily where the man rushes in and save the poor, weak female but rather it was really the stories where the characters had a genuine respect for one another. So, when it was time to create IPTLR, I wanted to make sure my company focused on portraying strong, independent and powerful women.
My Company, My Legacy
To further solidify the purpose of my company, I added the letters TLR because the letters represented three women in my life who believed in my talent and helped make my dream of being a self-published writer a reality: Teressa (T), my grandmother, and Libby (L) and Regina (R), my great cousins. Unfortunately none of these women lived to see IPTLR come to fruition, or to witness the release of my debut novel, Skye’s His Limit, which was published on August 22nd, 2005.
I made sure that my characters’ spirit always remains alive through the company and my writing. I took great pride in my debut novel and toured the country promoting the book, speaking at various book club events, as well as a number of youth awareness and community programs. For the time I devoted to the community, I was presented a Humanitarian Award from Hapton University’s Sista II Sista Chapter in 2006. 
