ABOUT DEBORAH
I came to fiction late, and right on time.
For most of my working life I was a strategist. I earned a doctorate, taught strategic management at George Washington University, founded a center for entrepreneurship at the University of Baltimore, and built professional-development programs across the country. I was always the one asking what the data really said, and how we could make sure people knew what they needed to know.
That researcher never retired. She simply found better material. For fun, I read wedding announcements, looking for couples who married later in life. One very unscientific study turned up thirty-seven of them. My favorites, Gertrude and Alvin, were 98 and 94. They met at their gym.
THE NOVELS
It runs in the family
My father finished his first novel at 88. I read every one of his manuscripts and helped with his research, and he went on to publish two more, the last at 93. After watching him, I had no excuse.
My own story had been living in my head for years. In 2022 I joined a write-a-novel-in-100-days program, promised myself 80,000 words, and tracked every one of them on a spreadsheet. Was that first draft good? Absolutely not. Did parts of it sing? Absolutely. I fell in love with finishing a scene, then a chapter, and watching these women come to life.
Then came the craft, which I am still learning, from my writers group, from the Washington Romance Writers, and from Romance Writers of America.
STARTING OVER
Letting go of the suits
In Let It Go, a monthly group I lead, I finally gave away the suits I wore at the SEC. I didn’t need them anymore. That identity had to go to make room for a new one. I don’t keep a bucket list, either. When you finish the list, you kick the bucket? No, thank you. I’d rather have a to-do list that never ends.
“I don’t want to be younger.
I just want to keep getting better.”
DEBORAH SMITH COOK
AT HOME
Where I am now
Home is Northern Virginia, with my husband of forty years, three miles from my son, my daughter-in-law and our two grandsons. With the boys I’m usually on the floor: building Legos, cooking in the play kitchen, belting out “Money, Money, Money” from Mamma Mia. To them I’m a very large toy. And down the hill behind our house lives a fox who comes and goes as it pleases.
These days I’m president-elect of the Washington Romance Writers, and every month I host the Savvy Book Club on Zoom. What matters most to me now is community: for readers, for writers, and for women working out what comes next.
FOR PRESS AND EVENTS
Short bio
Deborah Smith Cook writes later-in-life romance about strong, intelligent women who find love when they’ve stopped expecting it. Her debut, Finding Home, was a 2025 Holt Medallion finalist for Best First Novel; Wedding Plans is the second Rehoboth Beach novel. A former professor of strategic management and federal government employee, she lives in Northern Virginia with her husband of forty years and believes love is for any age, not just the young.