Francis Ray (July 20, 1944 – July 3, 2013) was a New York Times and USA Today bestselling African-American writer of romance novels. Her literary fiction series – Taggart and Falcon, the Invincible Women, Grayson Family of New Mexico, and Grayson Friends – consistently made bestseller’s lists. She lived in Dallas, Texas.
She was born in Richland, Texas, and studied nursing, receiving a bachelor’s degree from Texas Woman’s University in 1967. She began writing in 1987, while continuing to work as a nurse, and had her first book published in 1992. Ray was inspired to write after reading one of Kathleen Woodiwiss’s books.
In 1995, she co-founded the Romance Slam Jam, which was an author-reader conference and first launched in Texas.
Ray’s stories are character-driven and Ray spent time fleshing out full stories for the characters in her books, including their childhoods. She feels that writing romance is often more emotionally difficult than for other genres because while the characters must have conflict, the resolution needs to be solved in a way that readers know “that the couple will stay together no matter what”. It was also important to her to include “accurate realistic portrayals of African Americans” rather than stereotypes.
In 1999, Ray’s novel, Incognito, was adapted by Black Entertainment Television (BET) for broadcast.
She helped make the Arabesque imprint, which was owned by BET and dedicated to African-American romance, a success. In 2004, she and other authors were celebrated for their contributions to Arabesque which is now owned by Kimani.
Zane (born 1966/1967) is the pseudonym of Kristina Laferne Roberts, author of erotic fiction novels. She is best known for her novel Addicted.
In 1997, Zane began writing erotic stories to pass the time after her children went to bed. She was living in North Carolina and working as a sales representative. The stories developed a following on the Internet and she self-published The Sex Chronicles before landing a deal with Simon & Schuster.
Her work was the basis for the Cinemax program Zane’s Sex Chronicles. Her latest project, Zane’s The Jump Off, premiered March 29, 2013, on Cinemax.
Zane is the publisher of Strebor Books/Atria Books/Simon and Schuster where she publishes 36–60 books a year by other authors. The first feature film based on one of her works, Addicted, was released by Lionsgate on October 10, 2014.