About Debra Parmley
“Every day we are alive is a beautiful day.” – Debra Parmley
THE SHORT BIO:
Debra Parmley writes military romantic suspense, contemporary romance, western historical romance, holiday romance, fairy tale romance, and 1920s romance. She has 28 romance books out. As Debra Bishop, she writes fantasy, young adult, children’s books, and nonfiction. A Gemini, she thrives on writing in more than one genre.
She lives in a motor home full-time with her husband as they travel the U.S. and shares her adventures on her Beautiful Day Traveler blog. Debra has sold travel, walked the plank of a pirate ship off the coast of Grand Cayman, swum with dolphins in Moorea, and set foot in over 13 countries. Debra is the founder of Shimmy Mob Memphis which raises funds for the local domestic abuse shelter. She was the host of Book Lights on Blog Talk Radio and interviewed cover models on Cover Model Corner. Debra believes that “Every day we are alive is a beautiful day. “
THE LONG BIO:
Debra Parmley is a multi-genre author who was traditionally published in 2008 and now has her own press, Belo Dia Publishing Incorporated. Belo Dia is a “Beautiful Day,” in Portuguese.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, on June 7th (a birthday she shares with Prince, Tom Jones, Dean Martin, and Liam Neeson) she was adopted at the age of one year and raised in Springfield, Ohio. She married her high school sweetheart who she asked out on a five-dollar bet. Married with two grown sons and three grandchildren, she lived in Bartlett, TN just outside Memphis for 23 years. Memphis was literally just across the street from her house. On November 23, 2020, she and her husband sold their home in Bartlett and moved into their motor home full-time. They travel the U.S. as she writes tales of travel and adventure.
Debra attended Marywood University in Scranton, PA, and was the first student to win first place in two categories of the Delta Epsilon Sigma Beta Epsilon Chapter (English Honor Society) writing competition, in creative prose and in informal expository. While attending college her poetry was published in literary journals. She graduated cum laude with a BA in English Literature. Shortly after she graduated her first short story Vampire From Memphis was published in the horror anthology More Monsters From Memphis (out of print) and was nominated for a Darryl Award. The story wanted to be more romantic than horror.
When Dusty Richards, a well-known western author, challenged her to write her first novel and make it a western, she took the challenge and began writing Gone to Texas. As she wrote, the story wanted to be a romance. Her first novel, now re-titled A Desperate Journey, went on to achieve third place in a contest put on by Bobbi Smith, a western historical romance author, and then it was a finalist in the American Title II contest put on by Dorchester Publishing and Romantic Times Booklovers Magazine. Before the contest was over Debra had landed an agent and he sold her book a year later in a traditional deal with a one hundred dollar advance to Samhain Publishing. A Desperate Journey came out as an ebook in 2008 and came out in print in 2009. She’s been writing romance ever since.
Fascinated by fairy tales and folktales ever since she was young, she always ends her stories with a happy ever after. She has written romance in many sub-genres. Debra enjoys spreading love, one story at a time.
Debra loves travel and adventure in her life and action and adventure in her stories.
Her first novels were gritty western historical romances, with damsels in distress and gunfights. Her westerns are A Desperate Journey; Dangerous Ties; and Deadly Adversaries. A western box set Desperate, Dangerous, and Deadly, contains all three westerns. Isabella, Bride of Ohio a Victorian-era mail order bride story, contains a sweet damsel and a villain determined to harm her. It wouldn’t be a Debra Parmley historical western romance without those elements. Penny From Deadwood, a short story in the Deadwood anthology will be expanded into a novella in 2023.
In her Butterflies Fly Free series she writes about flappers in the 1920s. Each book focuses on a different flapper and her freedom or lack of freedom. Trapping the Butterfly is book one. Dancing Butterfly is book two. Book three, Exotic Butterfly, will be out in 2023, and a fourth book set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina will follow.
An Air Force veteran’s wife, Debra writes military romantic suspense and is a contributor to the Brotherhood Protectors World with Montana Marine; Defensive Instructor; Marine Protector; Blind Trust; A Triple C Ranch Christmas Wedding, Montana Delta Rescue, and Montana SEAL Protector. Her contemporary romances with a military hero are Aboard the Wishing Star, Check Out, and To Catch an Elf which will be out in 2023.
Her futuristic dystopian trilogy, The Hunger Roads, features a SEAL hero. Book one, A Change of Scenery, is being rewritten and will release as Another Change of Scenery. Down a Back Road, book two will release in 2023. Into the Convergence Zone, the last book in the trilogy will release in 2023.
She has written and published short stories and poetry. In 2021 she began publishing under Debra Bishop, her maiden name, for all her non-romance books. The Sweetest Day is a fairy tale for all ages. On Kindle Vella, she has a serial story, The Rolling House, a fantasy, magical time, and space travel story.
An adventurous soul, Debra loves to travel. She ran Fantastic Journey Travel, a boutique travel agency in Bartlett, TN, and has set foot in over thirteen countries. She once escorted a bus group through Scotland into the highlands, has stayed in over the water huts in Tahiti and Moorea, and dined on the beach on Bora Bora while watching Tahitian fire dancers. She walked the plank of a pirate ship off the coast of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean and kayaked through the mangroves in the dark of night in Puerto Rico to see bioluminescence in the water. In Turkey, she convinced her husband to take the bus to Ephesus to visit the farmers market though no one they met on the bus or in the town the entire day spoke English, and Debra and her husband didn’t speak Turkish. Debra is adventurous. She climbs lighthouses because she is afraid of heights. She has a phobia of deep water but walked the plank of a pirate ship in the Caribbean. To Debra, life is an adventure meant to be fully lived, not watched from the sidelines.
Her stories and poems often include things she has seen and learned on her travels.
Debra is the founder of Shimmy Mob Memphis. Shimmy Mob International raises funds for local domestic abuse shelters around the world.
She was the founding host of Book Lights on Blog Talk Radio and interviewed authors every Tuesday night for a year and a half.
On her Make-Believe Mondays Blog, she interviewed authors for four and a half years before she was published.
She has done Cover Model Corner interviews since 2011 and these interviews sometimes run in Affaire de Coeur Magazine. She also does freelance writing for clients and magazines.
Debra enjoys teaching writing classes in-person and online and has taught on panels since 2009. She enjoys speaking and earned her CC in Toastmasters.
Some of Debra’s favorite things are dark chocolate, visiting the beach and ocean, shooting her Mongolian horse bow (primitive archery), shooting pool, shooting long guns, watching sunsets all over the world, and hearing from readers. Cards, letters, and messages are treasured gifts, like finding that perfect shell on the beach.
Debra believes “every day we are alive is a beautiful day” and friends often hear her say it.
Debra signing her first book at Burkes Book Store in Memphis, TN 2009 Photo by Monica Parks