Who is Aime Austin?
(the official bio)
Aime Austin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Smith College and Cornell Law School. She is the author of the Casey Cort and Nicole Long series of legal thrillers. Aime is also the host of the podcast, A Time to Thrill. When she’s not writing crime fiction or interviewing brilliant creators, she’s in a yoga pose, knitting, or reading. Aime splits her time between Los Angeles and Budapest. Before writing, Aime practiced family and criminal law in Cleveland, Ohio.
But who am I really?
I’m the author of twenty-seven novels—fourteen romances under a pen name, and thirteen legal thrillers. When I first started writing seriously, I was in high school. Through college, I submitted and published essays and features in local and national newspapers. I still have the actual newsprint clips in a notebook.
Then I went to law school. While other students were diligently briefing cases, I started a newspaper. After graduation, I moved to Cleveland, Ohio following my then-husband’s career. Once there I wrote for the Sun Newspapers and Plain Dealer until I realized writing did not pay enough to pay off law school loans.
Since I hadn’t at all prepared for a career in law, I decided to start a solo practice. This is one of the things I have in common with Casey Cort. She also works in the same office building I did (the Illuminating Building at 55 Public Square), and lives on the same block in Shaker Square (North Moreland Boulevard). I also split my practice between felony criminal, divorce, and juvenile court.
That’s where the similarities end. She’s white (publishers required that back when I wrote this), and I’m black. I’m from New York City. She’s a first-generation immigrant. Furthermore, not a single case I ever worked on hit the headlines, though many ran along the edge of ethics.
After I moved to Los Angeles twenty years ago, I blogged, wrote a weekly column for an online news site, then switched exclusively to fiction after getting my first publishing contract. While I love writing novels, I miss writing essays.
So I’m back doing the short-form non-fiction writing that I also love.
