Christine Romans ’93: Anchor, author makes the day last

For most people, a full day of work in the news business that begins at 3:15 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m. tucking three kids under 5 into bed would be plenty.

Not for Christine Romans.

The 1993 Iowa State journalism graduate also has managed to write two personal finance books in the past two years. How’d she find the time? Romans wrote on weekdays in one-hour chunks after her shift on American Morning at CNN and on Saturdays in the two hours and 11 minutes it took her husband to take their kids to Coney Island for an outing.

Romans started her first book, Smart Is the New Rich: If You Can’t Afford it – Put It Down (publisher John Wiley & Sons; Amazon; Barnes & Noble), in February 2010. She was pregnant and determined to finish before the baby was born. By May, she was done.

Romans delivered the book’s final edits on a Friday in July and delivered her third son that Sunday.

“I didn’t know to have the luxury of writers’ block,” says Romans, 40, who has been a correspondent at CNN since 1999. Since February, she has been filling in as co-anchor of American Morning, and is permanently the anchor of Your Bottom Line, which airs Saturday morning.

In November, How to Speak Money (Wiley; Amazon; Barnes & Noble), which Roman co-authored with CNN financial expert Ali Velshi will be released. The book looks at how men and women spend and invest differently. It also discusses managing student debt, budgeting and retirement planning.

“We cranked it out together,” Romans says of the writing process. “We both integrated it into our lives.” The two would write before work or steal away to a conference room after a meeting. The topics were things they could relate to and were living – so the book “wrote itself,” says Romans.

It’s been a fascinating time to be covering finance and international news, says Romans. “Covering the Arab Spring, I felt like I was in a chair to history,” she says.

As for her reporting and interviewing skills, Romans learned those from her professors at Iowa State.

She can still hear Giles Fowler saying: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out” and “Brevity is the byproduct of vigor.” Doing education coverage of what makes a good teacher, Romans says she thinks of Giles, Dick Haws and Barbara Mack. “The skills I have learned at Iowa State have really served me well,” she says.

While at ISU, Romans was editor-in-chief of the Daily and in 2009 received the James W. Schwartz Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Communication from ISU’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. Romans stays connected to her ISU friends and gives the occasional tour of the CNN studio when someone is in New York.

As for the future, Romans says she always thought her first book would be a novel: “It’s still bubbling – maybe a financial thriller. I need to think about that.”

–By Caralee Adams