Chantel Simmons

You asked for the long version. Here goes:

1976: Chantel is born in St. Catharines and spends her time synchronized swimming, playing softball, writing notes to her friends in class, and getting detentions for doing so. Writing lines pays off though, as it’s good training so she never gets hand cramps. This will come in handy later.

1995: Chantel moves to Ottawa to go to Carleton University. In October it snows and she immediately applies for a transfer to Ryerson. She spends the rest of the year passing the time by learning how to skate on the Rideau Canal.

1996: Chantel starts her Bachelor of Journalism degree at Ryerson.

1999: While her classmates are all getting internships in the media, Chantel decides, despite having babysat twice in her entire life, to be an au pair in a little town outside Paris, France. She spends her weekdays making rice and fish sticks and playing soccer in the backyard with her charge, and her weekends travelling around Europe.

2000: She graduates and becomes an assistant to a literary agent.

2001: Chantel decides to become a freelance writer. Her father wonders how she will pay her rent. She offsets her work-from-home lifestyle by working a few shifts a week at the Toronto Sun, where she makes more money assisting the photographers on the Sunshine Girl shoots at Cherry Beach than she does proofreading the newspaper—a position that requires a journalism degree.

2002: Chantel lands a position as editorial assistant at ELLE Canada by swearing she loves to file and definitely does not want to write. She rescues Mr. Baz in a snowstorm and meets the man who will become her husband. The day after their first date, he sends flowers. She is in love.

2003: Chantel becomes the assistant editor in the beauty department at ELLE and spends her days trying out  new mascaras, lip glosses and spa treatments. She is in heaven. (Actually, she’s at Yonge & Sheppard, but doesn’t mind because there’s a hidden gem of a Winners that she trolls on her lunch breaks).

2004: Wooed by the promise of advanced screenings of TV shows, Chantel accepts a position as assistant editor at TV Guide, where she gets to preview shows like Desperate Housewives and Six Feet Under before they debut on TV.

Later that year, she is offered a position as editor of Elevate magazine, a cosmetic enhancement magazine. Here, she learns all about the world of nips, tucks and teeth whitening and is inspired to write her first novel , about a girl who works at a cosmetic surgery clinic, does yoga, and tries to transform herself to be more like her seemingly perfect friends.

2005: She gets married and her husband says that if she doesn’t actually write the novel in her head, it won’t ever get published. So she sits down, writes the novel, gets an agent and signs her first book deal with Key Porter. Her husband comes up with the name of the book: Stuck in Downward Dog.

2007: Stuck in Downward Dog is published in the US and Canada. Thanks to her overly supportive in-laws and their friends in Manitoba, the book becomes a Winnipeg Free Press bestseller. The Canadian Consulate in New York organizes a New York book launch at Lululemon and Chantel loves the turnout of strangers at her first event where she didn’t bribe her friends to come.

2008: Happily married, Chantel decides to explore the idea of what a married woman would do if she suddenly found out that her husband was having an affair. She prepares her husband that he’s going to be asked if it’s based on reality. He assures her that he’s not going to cheat just to give her something to write about. Chantel then convinces her agent that even though the husband gets struck by lightning, the  book is totally believable. When her agent stops laughing, she agrees that Chantel can write the book. Key Porter buys the book on a partial manuscript. Chantel believes they clearly love the idea of getting struck by lightning. The other member of her writing circle, author Marissa Ponikowski, thinks up the title for her: Love Struck.

2009: After five years (and a promotion to publisher and editor-in-chief) at Elevate, Chantel moves on to Sweetspot.ca, to be Editorial Director and spends her days in her pink-and-white office and updating her two blogs, The Cherry on Top (about all things sweet) and Make-it Session and her evenings working on revisions to Love Struck.

2010: Three years after becoming an author, Chantel leaves the full-time job world to make being an author — her dream — a full-time career. Love Struck will be released on February 15, 2010, the day after Valentine’s Day, making it the perfect book for both the hopeless and hopeful romantics out there, or those that don’t like romance at all.