Patricia Steele was born in California to an English/Dutch mother and a Spanish father. At age 9, her mother remarried and they moved moved to Oregon. As a young mother, she wrote short stories while her children napped. After working in the health insurance industry for over 30 years, she wrote her first book, "Shoot the Moon" following her magazine article, "Living with Cystic Fibrosis," a disease that took her first child in 1978.
Passionate about genealogy, she has written the first two books in her Spanish Pearls Series (The Girl Immigrant and Silvan Leaves). As the descendant of Spanish immigrants who sailed from Spain to Hawaii and then to California, she wanted to learn their history.
She is one of several administrators for the Hawaiian Spaniards Facebook site, a member of the Arizona Genealogical Society, the DAR and a volunteer for the Find A Grave organization. She loves writing mysteries with a touch of romance, cooking with wine (Cooking DRUNK cookbook tells it all) and traveling (gypsy blood).
As a child, her aunt watched her poke holes in squares of toilet paper as she practiced her cursive handwriting. Her auntie gave her real paper and Patricia has been writing ever since. When she sold her first publication, she wanted to dance in the streets and wave her first author’s check ($91). It was a non-fiction article in a medical table-top magazine, titled Living with Cystic Fibrosis, and the article's publication moved her to author status.
She wrote a children’s story for her children titled, “The Balloon.” It would eventually become Goodbye Balloon in 2011 with the help of 2nd-grade ”illustrators” from Matthew Whaley School in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Several of Patricia’s poems were published in “An Anthology” through the Oregon Writer’s Colony. A Roundabout Passage to Venice, a humorous travelogue, is filled with memories and journal details from her mother’s diary. It is based on their mother-daughter trip to Venice via London, Paris and Rome; a trip originally focused only on Paris. Therein lays the humor. Patricia as involved in the Doors to the Past in Historic Casa Grande through the Main Street Casa Grande to create narratives for doors painted by local artists from the town’s historical past. Constantly on the move, she continues to work on her genealogy. THEN BACK TO HER SECOND LOVE, WRITING FICTION. Shoot the Moon (2008), Tangled like Music (2015) and a sequel to Shoot the Moon (2015), titled Wine, Vines and Picasso, which takes place in southern France. She has book reading events every few weeks.
The Girl Immigrant: planning stages for screen play. As an administrator to the Hawaiian Spaniards Facebook page has led her to find connections across America and Spain to move her forward on this project. Amazon reviews are 5*
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This is the genealogical family history about the Ruiz Family in Malaga Province, Spain
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They took a gutsy gamble and fought Big Pharma
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It was 1911. A Spanish immigration story told through the eyes of a 9-year old.
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Callie Beauvais rushes to Provence to solve a mystery for her French family
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