I think Janet Evanovich was a bit of a dreamer in her formative years. After graduation from South River High School, she spent four years in the Douglass College art department learning to paint and developing a rash from pigment. In 1995 she and her husband moved to New Hampshire and moved into old house on the side of a hill not far from Dartmouth College. It was at this time Evanovich, Inc. was formed. Janet confesses to being a workaholic with no hobbies or special interests. Her favourite exercise is shopping. She reads comic books and only watches happy movies. She motivates herself to write by spending money before it has been made.

When she grows up she wants to be just like Grandma Mazur. She began to write weird stories, sending them to editors and agents and collecting rejection letters in a big cardboard box, which she burnt when full and went to work for a temp agency as a secretary. Four months into this career she got a call from an Editor offering to buy her last manuscript, a romance, for which she received the not inconsiderable sum of $2000. Following this success Janet Evanovich started writing romance novels full time, writing 12 books in the next five years, after which time, having run out of sexual positions, moved into the mystery genre. She spent the next two years drinking beer with law enforcement types, learning to shoot and practising swearing to get a feel for her characters. At the end of these years she created Stephanie Plum and although she says Stephanie isn't an autobiographical character, she admits to knowing where she lives.