Get to Know a Writer: Teri Wilson
- Rebecca Leigh
- Mar 31
- 3 min read
In many ways, Teri Wilson has her dog to thank for her success as a romcom writer. Anyone who has read her books will know she’s a huge animal lover, and when she first started writing her goal wasn't to write romance, but classic YA animal stories. The American Kennel Club used to have a quarterly print magazine called AKC Family Dog, and in 2008 they held a short fiction contest. The one rule was that one of your characters had to be a purebred dog, so Teri wrote a Valentine’s Day story featuring an English Cocker Spaniel. Her short story won third place, and a couple of months later she received a phone call from the editor who said there were two things she wanted Teri to know. The first was that she hated the title of her story (Teri agrees, but I’m sure it was fab), and the second was that in case no one had ever told her, she was a romance writer. Teri started writing her first romance novel the very next day.
Growing up she loved to read, but didn’t start to seriously pursue writing until she was in her forties when her son encouraged her to try it professionally. She has been traditionally published since 2012 and has since written over thirty books. She’s already turned in two books this year, writing the bulk of one of them in just five weeks. Her books have been adapted into feature films five times. The first was the Hallmark film Unleashing Mr. Darcy, a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in the dog show world where Mr. Darcy is a dog show judge and Elizabeth Bennet is a dog nanny. Her literary agent at the time was friends with a television producer and asked them to pitch the story to Hallmark. Teri had no idea all this was happening and was completely shocked (in a great way!) to find out it had been optioned 18 months later. A fun easter egg: she has cameos in four out of the five movies based on her books.
Teri gets most of her writing inspiration from her own life. “I see just a little spark of inspiration of something that happens in real life and I start daydreaming, what would happen if…” Her most recent book-turned-film, Royal-ish (Now streaming! Starring Nichole Sakura and William Moseley), was inspired by a trip to a character dinner with friends at Disney World. The idea for her book about twin sisters secretly switching places, The Accidental Beauty Queen, came to her when she was invited to be a judge at The Miss United States Pageant (Miss Congeniality fans: yes, that Miss United States pageant). As a huge fan of all things royal and sparkly she was completely in her element, and has been asked to judge multiple pageants since.
On average Teri writes three books a year (although this year the plan is five). She doesn’t outline thoroughly because she finds the story and characters change as they interact with each other on the page. When she begins a new book she wants to know how it starts, something that happens in the middle, and how it ends, purposefully leaving room for creativity in between. She loves the feeling of having built a story and a world out of nothing and knowing that other people enjoy it, a feeling that is never stronger than when she’s on a film set. Since working with Hallmark she frequently meets people at book signings who tell her “My Grandma just loves you” and says that’s the biggest compliment, because she thinks she’s a Grandma at heart. Her goal for her audience is feel-good escapism, trying to always keep things light and positive in everything she does. She wants her stories to create a safe place for everyone, for people to know when they read something she’s involved in that it’s going to make them feel good and happy and that it will come from a worldview of kindness.
Teri frequently teaches workshops both online and in person (her dog Charm the guest of honor at many, teaching alongside her, of course), and is currently considering turning one of her most popular romance writing classes into a non-fiction book. Teri’s favorite food is cookies and cream ice cream, really any cookies and cream ice cream; but especially from Baskin-Robbins.
