Peggy Webb ( a.k.a Anna Michaels)

Major Works

Southern Cousins Mysteries

• Elvis and the Dearly Departed Kensington (2009)
• Elvis and the Grateful Dead (2010)
• Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble (2011)
• Elvis and the Memhis Mambo Murders (2011)
• Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse (Oct. 2012)

  All photos of Peggy Webb by Nancy Jacobs

   

As Anna Michaels

The Tender Mercy of Roses (2011)

NEXT Novels by Peggy Webb

• Driving Me Crazy, Jan., 2006
• Flying Lessons, May, 2006
• Confessions of a Not-so-dead Libido, Nov., 2006
• Late Bloomers, Feb. 2008
• The Long Distance Mother, May, 2007, novella for Mother’s Day Anthology
• The Secret Goddess Code, Nov. 2007

Classic Romance

• TAMING MAGGIE, 1985
• BIRDS OF A FEATHER
• TARNISHED ARMOR
• DONOVAN’S ANGEL
• DUPLICITY
• SCAMP OF SALTILLO
• DISTURBING THE PEACE
• THE JOY BUS
• SUMMER JAZZ
• PRIVATE LIVES
• SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
• HALLIE’S DESTINY
• ANY THURSDAY
• HIGHER THAN EAGLES
• VALLEY OF FIRE
• UNTIL MORNING COMES
• SATURDAY MORNINGS
• THAT JONES GIRL
• THE SECRET LIFE OF ELIZABETH MCCADE
• TOUCHED BY ANGELS
• THE EDGE OF PARADISE
• DARK FIRE
• A PRINCE FOR JENNY
• ONLY HIS TOUCH
• CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU
• INDISCREET
• NAUGHTY AND NICE
• THE NEARNESS OF YOU
• BRINGING UP BAXTER
• ANGELS ON ZEBRAS
• NIGHT OF THE DRAGON
• ONLY YESTERDAY

Silhouette Romance

• WHEN JOANNA SMILES
• GIFT FOR TENDERNESS
• HARVEY’S MISSING
• VENUS DE MOLLY
• TIGER LADY
• BELOVED STRANGER
• ANGEL AT LARGE

Silhouette Intimate Moments

• l3 ROYAL STREET

Silhouette Christmas Stories

• ”I HEARD THE RABBITS SINGING”

Doubleday and BANTAM

• WHERE DOLPHINS GO, 1993
• WITCH DANCE, 1994
• FROM A DISTANCE, 1995

Silhouette Special Edition

• SUMMER HAWK, Jan., 2000
• WARRIOR’S EMBRACE, May, 2000
• GRAY WOLF’S WOMAN, Sept., 2000
• STANDING BEAR’S SURRENDER, Mar., 2001
• INVITATION TO A WEDDING, June, 2001
• THE SMILE OF AN ANGEL, Dec., 2001
• BITTERSWEET PASSION, Feb., 2002
• FORCE OF NATURE, Apr., 2002
• THE ACCIDENTAL PRINCESS, Jan., 2003
• THE MONA LUCY, May, 2003
• THE CHRISTMAS FEAST, Dec., 2003

Magazine Columns (Humor) MORE THAN 200 FOR “WATER WELL JOURNAL” and “GROUND WATER AGE”

Blues lyrics:

• Ain’t No Use Cryin’
• Don’t Mess With Me
• Lonesome Road Blues
• Solo Livin’ Blues
• How Come You Ain’t Dead

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Peggy Webb: A Biography by Sarwat Younas (SHS) 1998 (Updated 2012)

Best-selling author Peggy Webb is the author of 70 novels in multiple genres--romance, romantic suspense, mystery, and literary fiction. In addition, she has written more than 200 magazine columns and co-scripted the screenplays based on her best-selling novels, Where Dolphins Go and Driving Me Crazy.
Her novel Driving Me Crazy was submitted for a 2007 Pulitzer in fiction She was born in Mississippi where she grew up on a farm with her parents, who always provided encouragement for her and her two sisters.

According to Webb, her mother instilled a love of words while her father instilled a fierce desire for achievement. Although her parents’ encouragement helped her become the successful writer she is today, she also stresses that education was a big factor in her career. Today Webb has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. She is published in seventeen languages.

Peggy graduated valedictorian of her high school class. She later received a B.A. (cum laude) from Mississippi University for Women in Columbus and an M.A. (summa cum laude) from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Photo of Peggy Webb above by Nancy Jacobs

Webb wanted to be a writer from the time she was a child. She used to sit in the hayloft on her farm and dream about writing. With more than fifty books and 200 magazine columns published, that dream is more than fulfilled. Taming Maggie, her first book, published by Bantam in 1985, was number one on the romance best seller list. She is a pioneer in her field. Her second book, Birds of a Feather, was the first true comedy/romance published in the genre. A Prince for Jenny was the first romance published that featured a heroine with Down’s syndrome.

Peggy Webb still lives in Mississippi and continues to be a prolific writer. As a humor-columnist turned writer, she became a best seller with her first novel and continues to break new ground with her work. She has incorporated original blues lyrics into Blues Before Sunrise as well as written the words to numerous other songs, and she experimented with alternating first-person points of view in the literary novels for NEXT Novel, a Harlequin imprint.

Webb has taught a non-credit course called "Building Blocks of a Novel" at The University of Mississippi's Tupelo Campus. She has been active in Community Theater. A lover of roses, she has four rose gardens. In 2005 Peggy Webb was an adjunct Mississippi State University professor in the education department in Starkville.

One of her novels, Driving Me Crazy (2006), is about a mystery writer who is suffering a mid-life crisis that forces her to move in with her mother, who herself is in poor health. Webb says that this book is loosely based on her own experiences. She commented in an interview with Starkville Daily News that she has spent “her entire life...raising two children, assorted dog, s and more than a few eyebrows.” (SDN January 27, 2006). In her over twenty-year career, Webb now has written close to seventy novels which have been published in seventeen different languages. To date she has sold more than ten million copies around the world. In addition to her novels, she has written numerous blues songs. With Charlene Keel, she also has written a screenplay based on her best-selling novel Where Dolphins Go, soon be a major film. Her novel Flying Lessons was published by Harlequin in May, 2006. Webb is the founder of the Webb Talbert Institute of Writing.

Webb had the first book in her new mystery series published by Kensington in the summer of 2008. The first book is Elvis and the Dearly Departed and the second is Elvis and the Grateful Dead. The humorous novels feature a dog who thinks he's the King reincarnated. Webb calls them her Southern Cousins Mysteries. Currently, Webb continues writing the Southern Cousins Mysteries. The comedic cozies star Elvis, a basset hound who thinks he’s the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll reincarnated. Other titles in the series include Elvis and the Memphis Mambo Murders, Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble, and Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse.

Since she launched her writing career in 1985 with Taming Maggie, which captured Waldenbook’s Best-selling New Author Award and a number one spot on the romance bestseller list, she has garnered numerous national book awards, and her books consistently appear on the women’s fiction bestseller lists. In 2009 she received a prestigious PIONEER AWARD from Romantic Times in recognition that she paved the way for the sub-genre of romantic comedy.Recently Webb has received nominations for Career Achievement and Storyteller of the Year.
        As much at home with music and theater as she is with books, Peggy writes blues songs, plays piano and sings first soprano in her church’s choir. She recorded her blues song, Ain’t No Use Cryin and has performed in local community theater in both musical comedy and dramatic roles such as M’Lynn in Steel Magnolias and the White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
She is a frequent and much-sought after public speaker and guest lecturer at universities and writers’ conferences.

The Tender Mercy of Roses, published by Simon & Schuster in May 2011, was written under her pen name Anna Michaels and was a Featured Alternate Selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Clubs and a Top Five Pick of Delta Magazine.

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An Interview with Peggy Webb by Sarwat Younas (SHS)
Telephone interview took place on 17 April 1998. (Editor's note: Peggy Webb has updated several of her answers to this interview)

I know all of your books are fiction, but are parts of them based on your life, or do the characters resemble people in you know?

My mother is the major character in Driving Me Crazy, but she is the only person who has ever had that kind of influence on my novels.

What authors have influenced you the most?

I did my thesis on Tennessee Williams, and I adore his work. Other authors I admire are Eudora Welty, Pat Conroy, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Berg.

What other people inspired you in your childhood?

My mother loved books and encouraged me to read. My fifth grade teacher, Cynthia Pickens, used to read Tom Sawyer aloud, and I had a great bookmobile librarian, Miss Frankie, who knew exactly the kind of books a little girl should read. As a child, I fell in love with the written word. Mrs. Anderson, my piano teacher, instilled a love of music in me.

How long have you known you wanted to be a writer?

All my life. I used to hide in the hayloft when I was a kid and dream about it.

Is there any other field of work that has ever interested you?

I love teaching and did teach a short stint of high school English.

Do you have a favorite book that you have written?

Driving Me Crazy is my favorite.

What interests you most about writing?

I like creating an entirely different world.

Review of Where Dolphins Go by Sarwat Younas 1998

At first, Peggy Webb's novel, Where Dolphins Go seems to be about an alcoholic surgeon who has quit his job and lost his son in a tragic accident. On closer inspection, however, it is clear that the novel is about breaking promises and the betrayal of loved ones. At the beginning of the novel, you learn that a car hit Dr. Taylor’s son. His son was brought into the emergency room and ould not be saved by his own father. Dr. Taylor’s wife blames Dr. Taylor for not being able to save the boy. Dr. Taylor blames his wife for not watching their son and letting him run out in the middle of the road. They both feel like the other has betrayed trust.

Another character in the novel, Susan, discovers her husband who is now dead, had been sleeping with her sister. Even though her husband has been dead several years, Susan feels betrayed. Dr. Taylor finally stops drinking and goes back to work. He then falls in love with Susan, who has a four-year-old son with a heart problem. Dr. Taylor helps him recover and promises to take him to where the dolphins go one day. The suspense builds when the reader does not know whether this promise is going to be kept or broken.

I think that everybody can relate to the theme in this story. At one point in our lives, we all have been betrayed by loved ones, although perhaps not in the same way as the characters in this book. Everybody breaks promises. It is these similarities that make the characters and the situations believable.

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From Webb: Featured Author at bdd.com (Books @ Random: Page has now expired).

"When I was six years old and full of the magic of words and other worlds not my own, I knew that someday I would create those worlds and others would feel the magic. I suppose I actually became a writer when Taming Maggie was published back in 1985, though the truth is that I was always a writer. Others called me a dreamer and a bookworm and sometimes things not so kind, but I knew all along that I was a storyteller and that someday I would tell my stories in places outside the small farming community where I grew up in Mississippi. And finally I did. After a meandering journey that took me through a brief stint of teaching English and the bringing up of two lovely children and the raising of numerous dogs, mostly retrievers, I finally arrived at the place where I was headed all along. I still go to the farm for inspiration. My son and my daughter-in-law live there now with their black Lab, who is one of my granddogs. My beautiful granddaughter vand other granddog live in New Hampshire in a rambling three-story house with two very fine attorneys who happen to be my daughter and my son-in-law.

When I'm not writing, I turn to music and acting. I'm sure the neighbors in my apartment building sometimes wish I didn't own a piano, but they never complain. My life is filled with the wonder of books and music, of theater and quiet woods, of family and good friends. I try to pour that wonder into every book I write. Thank you for your letters telling me how you laughed and how you cried. Thank you for letting me share the magic with you."

Works Cited

Webb, Peggy. “Peggy Webb” (21 May, 1996) n. pag. Online. World Wide Web. 25 April, 1998. Available http://www.bdd.com/bin/featured author/authors/5424.html

Webb, Peggy. Telephone interview. 17 April 1998. (Updated Feb., 2006)