SuperHeroines

Valerie Parv: Australia’s Queen of Romance

By Pam Payne

Every once in a while you meet an amazing woman who has a profound effect on your life and how you view the world. For me, Valerie Parv is one of those women. I call her the Wonder from Down Under.  

I first met Valerie on the eHarlequin community boards. She made an immediate impression with her unparalleled wit and bubbly spirit. She can write limericks and songs in less time than it takes me to hum a few bars. Puns are her specialty. She’s an inspiration to those who know her with her upbeat outlook on life and unending supply of energy.

Valerie is Australia’s Queen of Romance. She’s the person the media turns to for anything to do with romance. In 1988, she held the first romance-writing workshop, which led to the establishment of RWA Australia. There’s even an award named after her. The lucky winner gets Valerie as her mentor for a year.

More than 20 million copies of her novels have sold, and many of her more than 60 books have been translated into 24 languages. She regularly sells short fiction to magazines and wrote two best-selling guides for writers in addition to several other nonfiction works.

The State Library in New South Wales has been collecting her papers since 1994. About this honor, Valerie says, “The State Library of New South Wales (Sydney’s major library) asked me if they could acquire my papers. They now archive my manuscripts, story notes, stories I wrote as a child, even my first ‘novel’ written in pencil in an exercise book, and the certificate I got for crossing the equator when my family sailed to Australia as migrants from England. Recently, they added about 60 of my foreign translations to the collection, making several hundred translations they now hold. It’s exciting to be part of this collection as it establishes romance as a serious form of fiction, worthy of this kind of recognition. So I see it as flying the flag for romance novels, not just for myself.”

As if her writing isn’t enough to keep her busy, Valerie’s life is packed full with volunteer work at Canberra’s National Zoo and Aquarium, where she guides tours and plays with tigers. She knows all the chimps by name, feeds honey to 800-pound bears, and walks dingoes. She and her husband have worked at the zoo for six years now, ever since she signed him up for a tour as a birthday gift. Oh, and did I mention her husband is a former crocodile hunter?

Valerie is currently pursuing her master’s degree in creative writing with Queensland University of Technology. According to Valerie, “It’s an incredible amount of work and I’m not sure where it’s leading, but I tend to think everything in life happens for a reason and I’ll find out in due course why I’ve been given this opportunity. As one who left school at 14, it’s a real adventure to be a university student at my age.”

Last January, she was an Australia Day Ambassador, well-deserved recognition for her contribution to Australian society, and she’s been invited to do the same for 2007.

In her spare time (yeah, right), Valerie owns a coffee shop, In2Coffee, with her sister and brother-in-law. She works there several days a week, greeting customers, selling sweets and coffee.

Are you tired yet?

Valerie is amazing in the amount of energy she expends. I often see her online at 4 a.m. Canberra time, saying she’s already written several pages. Or she’s off to present an all-day workshop, finishing up a paper for her master’s degree program, or getting ready to give an interview for a television station or newspaper. Or it’s her day at the zoo. She never stops, rarely slows down, and never, ever gives up. She’s also generous with her time to unpublished writers. This summer, I did a round robin on my blog and Valerie joined in. We had a great time.

I asked her how she met her crocodile hunter. This is what she told me:

“We met in a hardware store in Sydney. Perhaps not the world’s most romantic place, but it gave us a lifelong enthusiasm for hardware stores. I was in my teens and got a job as an advertising copywriter with Nock & Kirby’s, then the largest hardware store in the Southern Hemisphere. Paul was already the store’s senior layout artist. After a day on the job, I came home to my mother, who said, ‘This Paul Parv must be really something. You haven’t stopped talking about him.’ So you could say he made an impact. Our first date was a few months later, a day’s fishing on Sydney Harbour—yes, also touchingly romantic—but it set the pattern for 36 years of wedded bliss. Together we’ve travelled from one end of Australia to the other, including Thursday Island and Cape York, the most remote parts of Australia, Kakadu in the Northern Territory, and across the Nullarbor Plains. Originally, we went camping when the budget didn’t run to hotels. Then we discovered room service and that was that for the tent. I always say I taught Paul about Star Trek and the Monkees, and he introduced me to World War II and the great outdoors.”

With a hero like that, is it any wonder Valerie Parv is Australia’s Queen of Romance? 

You can visit Valerie on the Web at www.valerieparv.com.

Pam Payne writes fun, sexy romances and suspenseful tales with a touch of the paranormal. One of her dreams is to visit Australia and dive the Great Barrier Reef.

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