Biography
Julie Leto was born and raised in Florida to a family of Italian and Cuban descent.[ citation needed ] After picking up her first romance when she was only sixteen, Leto knew that she wanted to write one of her own.[ citation needed ] She earned degrees in Creative Writing and Speech Communications from the University of South Florida. She began writing in 1988, while she was in graduate school. After graduation she became an English teacher at Tampa Catholic High School and continued to write on weekends and at night. In 1996, in order to give herself more time to write, Leto quit her teaching job and joined her family's manufacturing business. The following year she sold her fourth completed novel, Seducing Sullivan to Harlequin Temptation. Shortly thereafter, she gave birth to a daughter and chose to be a full-time writer and mother.
Florida is the southernmost contiguous state in the United States. The state is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida. Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U.S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Miami metropolitan area is Florida's most populous urban area. Tallahassee is the state's capital.
The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university in Tampa, Florida. It is a member institution of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1956, USF is the fourth-largest public university in the state of Florida, with an enrollment of 50,755 as of the 2018–2019 academic year. The USF system has three institutions: USF Tampa, USF St. Petersburg and USF Sarasota-Manatee. Each institution is separately accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university is home to 14 colleges, offering more than 80 undergraduate majors and more than 130 graduate, specialist, and doctoral-level degree programs.
Tampa Catholic High School is a diocesan, Catholic, coeducational high school located in Tampa, Florida, United States, founded in 1962. It is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Petersburg. Its motto is "Veritas et Caritas," which means "Truth and Charity."
Leto was a launch author for the new Harlequin Blaze line, and is the longest continuous member of the Tampa Area Romance Authors organization. Leto has written for Harlequin, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Books. Leto lives in Tampa, Florida.[ citation needed ]
Tampa is a major city in, and the county seat of, Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. It is on the west coast of Florida on Tampa Bay, near the Gulf of Mexico, and is the largest city in the Tampa Bay Area. The bay's port is the largest in the state, near downtown's Channel District. Bayshore Boulevard runs along the bay, and is east of the historic Hyde Park neighborhood.
