Maralys Wills calls herself a “genre-hopper.” Her twelve books span no fewer than six different genres, though this wasn't her intent when she began writing. “In the beginning,” she says, “I just wanted to write. The genre-hopping was an accident.”

Her fiction works include four romance novels and a techno-thriller about airplane sabotage: Scatterpath. The New York Times called Scatterpath “exciting, down-to-the-wire stuff...her cockpit sequences all but put the reader at the controls.”

Among her non-fiction works are Manbirds: Hang Gliders & Hang Gliding, published by Prentice-Hall; a party game book, Fun Games for Great Parties; and her memoir about the sons who were hang gliding champions, Higher Than Eagles. Sadly, the Wills family lost two sons to the sport, and Wills's account of those initially exhilarating, then tragic years earned her high marks in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. Higher Than Eagles has had five movie options--one from Finnegan-Pinchuk (Producers of “Northern Exposure”) and another from Disney. Higher Than Eagles has had five movie options--among them, one from Finnegan-Pinchuk .

Wills's next book, Save My Son, is another product of her personal experiences. After years of trauma in dealing with an addicted son, Wills teamed up with an Orange County Sheriff to write a public policy book. During several years of research in four states, Wills found not one, but many solutions to the addiction problem.

Her recent, light-hearted memoir, A Circus Without Elephants, was published by Ivy House, and a year later earned a national award from Writer’s Digest. In the spring of 2008, Stephens Press published the sequel, A Clown in the Trunk.

After years of teaching creative writing, Wills was gratified that Stephens Press also published her writing book, Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead. Within
three weeks, the book won First Place in its category from USA Book News.

Maralys Wills is the mother of six children--five boys and a girl. Her husband is a lawyer. Wills attended Stanford (where she met her husband) and UCLA, where she got her B.A. and a teaching credential.

For the past 18 years, Wills has taught novel writing on the college level, and in 2000 was voted “Teacher of the Year.” In addition to frequent speaking engagements at local colleges, she gives writing seminars: “All you have to do is ask.” She is a past president of the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America.