Carol Marsella acquired her MBA from Seton Hall University in the spring of 1989 and went on to study and lead music at Westminster Choir College, New Jersey for three years. Her interests in music and drama led her into leading a children's choir and teen drama club where she has been blessed to work with many dynamic and talented young people.

Although she had written several musicals for young performers, she decided in 1994 to concentrate her creative energies on her other passion: writing prose. Her breakthrough came in the same year when a famous celebrity, by American standards, asked her to "look over" his planned autobiography. She became its silent co-author and, upon its release, it immediately soared to the top of the bestsellers' list where it stayed for 6 consecutive weeks.

There have been subsequent co-authored "autobiographies" for the rich and famous in each of the years since. Next year promises Carol's own name on the cover of a long awaited Authorized Biography of one of the more famous actors of our day.

In the author's own words...

"My first attempts at writing were poems and short love stories that I would write in study hall while I was in school. As time went on, I also wrote one act plays which I persuaded my school friends to act out. (Some of them have never forgiven me the experience!)

"So you should know how cerebral I am, at the ripe old age of twelve I was armed with the adolescent notion that I knew everything and was capable of philosophical interpretation.  Having read and become inspired by C.S. Lewis, I began to write faith related essays. So sure that I, like all great thinkers in their time, would be rejected by my peers, I buried my earliest efforts in a lunchbox tin under my personal version of Shel Silverstein's GIVING TREE in the back yard of the home in which I was living at the time. No sense challenging fate.

"My first completed novelette was called 'Butter Dreams' and it showcased and complemented my love of a love story and my wanderlust. It had to be painstakingly researched because I had not yet been further from home than the 60 miles to the Jersey Shore. I would page through hundreds of travel brochures, often after lights out, and hand-write my impressions and daydreams in the right column of a steno pad. (I used the left column for my production notes - for the inevitable adaptation to stage or screen. Figured to get the jump on story boarding it.) Through the years I have revised it several times and it remains one of my favorite works in progress. You see, I never could rid myself of three things: my addiction to writing, my need for musical theatre and my incessant wanderlust.

"Like many other authors, I gained my life experience in exotic careers, such as, to name but a few, executive secretary, balloon girl (don't ask), business manager (for a man with a positively insane temper), nanny, church soloist, choir director, cleaning woman, math/history tutor, Emergency Medical Technician, and night-club chanteuse.

"Similarly, memories of my childhood continue to provide a wealth of experiences from which I can draw. My young life was full of drama, tragedy, abuse, neglect, family secrets, angst and lost love. This unusual combination, up until I developed the ability to harness my imagination, encouraged a vivid and oft times wild fantasy life that frequently overflowed into my real life experiences  encouraging family and friends to consider me a bit on the eccentric side. I would pretend to be someone else with such a passion and vigor that I would actually begin to live as though I was that other person. This made for some interesting happenings along the way and taught me how to speak in a voice other than my own which has served me well in my work as a ghostwriter - which is the pudding-proof from which I draw my personal axiom: 'God can use anything!'

"I never stayed at a job for long, and while I admired, I dare say envied, those who were able to sustain a career, the very thought of performing the same or similar tasks in the same place for the rest of my life seemed to me to be the most horrible sentence into which one could be forced! I would quit my job at the drop of an airline ticket and, upon my return from wherever the wind had taken me, move on to the next temporary profession for as long as I could stand still. I would satisfy my need for imagination and fantasy by retiring to my sanctuary, the comforting tick tick tick of my typewriter, at every given opportunity.

"I have been given a wonderful recipe for success as a writer. Think about it. Take one desperately lonely childhood and one very understanding and supportive life-long gentleman-friend; add to the mix a passel of fine memories of careers, romance and travel; fold in my ever-searching quest for spiritualism; combine with the chaotic and rewarding relationships with countless children through my other work; and you have my formula for a built in muse.

"The first major breakthrough came when I was given my first computer, a Dell. For years I'd struggled with my faithful old typewriter; the computer freed me from having to correct all my typos and the endless frustrating trips to the photocopying shop.

"These days, I hone my skills by writing for the sheer enjoyment of it and by mentoring aspiring writers by editing or beta reading their works. My newest venture in that arena is NewProse dot org, an online community for writers that I conceived and implemented this past year. Other things from which I draw inspiraton? Well, I volunteer at a primary school library and a children's choir, an enjoyable combination of roles that combines literature and music along with working with children. I travel on a moment's notice to points unknown and have made some colorful friends all around the globe.

"My childhood love of the Brenda Starr Serial and Superman Comics, inspired me, in 2000, to write my first fan-fiction, a what happened next (WHN) piece that was inspired by the movie, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. I did not yet know there was such a thing as fanfic and was convinced that using another person's characters and plot as a starting point to write a story of my own was odd (even by my standards.) But I simply could not stop thinking about this story, could not leave it alone! I wrapped my writing in paper and hid it in a drawer under my sweaters.

The following year, I ventured into the world of the laptop computer. (I do not know how I lived without my little Toshiba.) Next, I added an online connection for research. Eventually, I wandered into a Website dedicated to a favorite TV show and found that there is, in existence, an entire literary subculture dedicated solely to fanfic and, apparently, it has been thriving for years. Who knew? (I still keep that WHN in my drawer, though, as I suspect it was inspired more by the actors, specifically Gabriel Byrne, than the film's plot.)

"I admit to a passion for fanfic now, and though I gravitate towards Victorian era Western themes, my latest ambition would be to see my stories re-worked as episodic television. (I guess I never really out grew my dreams of needing those production notes in the left column.)"

Carol@newprose.org