f
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ern Michaels is not a great writer. Ask her yourself. She is however one heck of a storyteller. Born Mary Ruth Kuczkir, the phenom known as Fern Michaels over her 38-year writing career, refers to her pseudonym as something she “does.” She is Mary Ruth. Fern Michaels is her career.
A wife and mother of five, when her youngest began
kindergarten, Kuczkir’s then-husband told her to “get off [her] ass and get a job.”
“We only had one car at the time. And I didn’t know
how to do anything except be a wife and mother,” she says.
So, on a family camping trip in 1973—all five kids and the
family dog in tow, “I bought one of those marble composition books and told my husband I was going to write a book
on the trip.” She did exactly that. The entire first book was
written in longhand.
lisher rejected her second book, but he bought the third. “The third came back one day before the second book,” she says. Her daughter, Susy, has the first copy of “Pride and Passion,” Kucz-
kir’s first published work.
Fast forward to 1993 when Kuczkir moved from New
Jersey to Summerville to be closer to her children, bought a
300-year-old plantation house (the oldest home in Dorchester
County) and embraced her new life as a southern transplant.
Charming and comfortable, Kuczkir’s home is clearly an out-
ward manifestation of herself. Her kitchen’s natural light, bold
“For some reason [the thought of writing a book] didn’t
red accents and flora make you want to stay awhile—a neces-
lisher in Canada upon her return home. So, what was the first
whose days are spent tapping on her computer’s keyboard. “I’m
intimidate me,” she adds. Kuczkir sent the manuscript to a pub-
sity for a writer who does not need to venture out often and
novel about? “Let’s just say it had a beginning, a middle and an
a homebody,” she admits.
but he told me I had potential.”
ing schedule; she’s written 114 books, four that are still waiting
end,” she jokes. “Basically, it sucked. The publisher rejected me,
That publisher’s vote of confidence was all it took. Kuc-
It goes without saying that she keeps a disciplined writ-
to be published. “I used to work all day, and I had a different
zkir bought a typewriter and taught herself to type. She then
schedule—like an office, but I don’t do that anymore,” says Kuc-
and waited. Then she mailed the third. “I would have given up if
that matters is family,” she adds, clearly alluding to the loss of
wrote a second and a third book. She mailed the second book
the books had not crossed in the mail,” Kuczkir says. The pub-
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AZALEA MAGAZINE / FALL 2011
zkir hauntingly. “When all else is said and done, the only thing
several loved ones in recent years. She writes every week day