Distinguished Alumni in the College of Liberal Arts 2005 Awardees

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Jenny Crusie

M.A., Professional Writing and Women's Literature, 1986

Jenny Crusie is a New York Times bestselling author of romance novels, who has also published a book of literary criticism on Anne Rice, published under the name of Jenny Smith. She attended Wright State as Jennifer Smith while teaching in the Beavercreek public school system as an elementary and junior high art teacher. Jennifer earned a master's degree from WSU in Professional Writing and Women's Literature. Her master's thesis was titled “A Spirit More Capable of Looking Up to Him: Women's Roles in Mystery Fiction 1841-1920.” While at Wright State , she published an article entitled “De-mystifying Feminist Criticism: A Response” with Mary Beth Pringle and Judi Roller.

In 1993 Harlequin accepted Jenny's first novel, Manhunting , Five more Harlequins followed, including Getting Rid of Bradley which won the RWA Rita Award for Best Short Contemporary, Strange Bedpersons , What the Lady Wants , Charlie All Night , and Anyone But You. Jenny also wrote two category novels for Bantam's Loveswept line, The Cinderella Deal and Trust Me On This . During this time she put the Ph.D on hold to earn an MFA in fiction from The Ohio State University; her thesis was titled Just Wanted You to Know , and consisted of several short stories and the proposal for a mainstream novel titled Crazy For You .

In the fall of 1995, Jenny began to write single title novels for St. Martin 's Press, which include Tell Me Lies , Crazy For You , Welcome to Temptation , Fast Women , Faking It , and Bet Me . Today, in many ways, Jenny has come full circle. She is currently collaborating on a novel with Robert Mayer called Don't Look Down , putting into practice everything she studied about the differences in the way men and women write fiction .