Swendson has since written five sequels featuring the heroine Katie Chandler. Office politics began to arise, however, and Swendson became less and less happy with the job. Rather than allow her to resign, Swendson's supervisor asked her to work a three-quarter time schedule and gave her permission to telecommute, which freed her schedule enough that she could begin writing again. Her new job for a major international public relations firm required a great deal of travel and long hours, leaving her little or no time to write. Īfter selling two more novels, this time to Harlequin Books, Swendson endured an eight-year period where she could not sell any of her other work. Her alter ego was named well before 1997 debut of the character on Stargate SG-1. She chose the name Samantha Carter, in part because she wanted to retain her own first initial but have a last initial from the other half of the alphabet from her own, and in part because she was a fan of The X-Files episode that included the Samantha clones. Swendson sold this novel and two others in 1995 to a publisher who insisted that she use a pen name. She completed her first manuscripts for a contest, winning the science fiction/fantasy category and attracting the notice of an editor.

After her graduation, Swendson worked in public relations and became serious about learning to write a novel, joining local writing organizations, and researching the novel-writing process. These courses included fencing (useful for fantasy novels), the search for extraterrestrial life (useful for science fiction novels) and parageography (the geography of imaginary lands). Biography Īlthough Swendson majored in broadcast news at the University of Texas at Austin, she enrolled in a wide variety of courses that she thought could help her become a successful novelist. Swendson is perhaps best known for the 'Katie Chandler' series of novels, beginning with the 2005 publication of Enchanted, Inc. She has also written under the pseudonym Samantha Carter.

Shanna Swendson is an American author of romance novels and chick lit.

Don't Hex with Texas by Shanna Swendson