If writing is a journey, fiction is the avenue of adventure. Where else can one meet Knights Templar, explore medieval spirituality, and create landscapes of thought?
 
Carolyn Burns Bass began her writing career as Carolyn A. Burns while at Orange Coast College during the ’80s. After an internship with Contemporary Christian Music magazine, Carolyn joined the staff and was promoted to assistant editor. Carolyn wrote cover stories, personality profiles, record and concert reviews, attended the Grammy Awards and met many pop icons of her generation. But fiction was her first writing love.

Leaving publishing behind, Carolyn spent three years in Japan—courtesy of her husband's duty as a Marine Corps pilot—where she fell in love with Japanese culture, food, and people. Although she craves the smell of a blueline and misses the thrill of a slick magazine fresh off the press, she did not return to fulltime publishing upon returning to the US. She became a WAHM (Work At Home Mom) instead. Carolyn has written food reviews for local publications, articles for specialty journals, and self-published two books: Kalligraphia--the Art of Beautiful Handwriting (a workbook for learning italic calligraphy, now out of print) and Write from the Heart, a guidebook on writing personal memoirs. Both books were written for classes Carolyn taught for city adult education departments. But fiction was still her first writing love.

With her children now teenagers and fairly self-winding, Carolyn operates Word*Art Solutions, a creative business communications studio in Southern California. Carolyn designs public relations campaigns; writes publicity blurbs and marketing collateral; designs newsletters, ads and flyers; creates logos, coordinates client meeting registration, and manages databases. But Carolyn's first love in writing will always be fiction.

Carolyn won two awards in the 2002 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition. "Write from the Heart," a motivational piece on memoir writing won an honorable mention in the Article Writing category, while a modified chapter excerpt from her novel The Nexus  won an honorable mention in the Genre Short Story category. The short story award is closest to her heart, being as it was for her first writing love, fiction.

Carolyn began her novel The Nexus in response to a question that brewed inside for several years. She imagined a place where the soul is drawn and nurtured during times of trauma. The Nexus is the story of a man and a woman, separated by centuries, but joined together in a common love. The Nexus is offered exclusively by Nephele Tempest at The Knight Agency. It is, of course, fiction—her first writing love.