I came to writing by a fairly circuitous route. Oh, there was the obvious stuff - the sophomoric poetry in high school, the odd short story, hastily stuffed into a drawer. But I didn't start writing mysteries until I was 39, and at the time, I was working as a clinical social worker at a local university. Then, one afternoon while my youngest child was sleeping, an opening line occurred to me: "A good astrologer should never predict a murder." Intrigued, I wrote it down. And then I just kept writing, and next thing I knew, I was hooked.
Yes, writing addiction is a terrible thing. Within a couple of years, I'd started mailing query letters and sample chapters to editors across Canada, and pretty soon I graduated to sending out full manuscripts (but only when they asked for them - I wasn't completely shameless!). By the time Polestar accepted Pluto Rising in the fall of 1998, Mike Harris, the then-premier of Ontario, had slashed education spending so drastically that the university where I worked had resorted to laying off any mental health staff who weren't protected by a union. I was one of them. I realized I had no option but to accept my writing addiction, and decided to take the plunge and do it full-time.
Unfortunately, I was forced into a brief hiatus from writing by some personal crises, but since spring, 2003, I've been getting back into training form., These days, I sit in the shade of the lilacs in my back garden, sipping decaf and hammering at the keyboard of my laptop every chance I get. My latest grand plan for world domination involves finishing the fourth Katy Klein novel, Venus Wept, by the end of summer, 2003. When that's done, I've got an idea or two kicking around in my brain for the fifth in the series...in fact, a title popped into my head just the other day. My family are wonderfully supportive of their wacky wife/mother, and everyone knows not to try to talk to me when I'm on a real roll. Not that I'll snap at them or get violent or anything - I just won't hear them!
Speaking of family, I have two children, one of whom has taken to towering over me in a very annoying way. I knew when he was born that he'd be a big 'un, but I couldn't have anticipated that he'd grow from 12 pounds, 6 ounces at birth to a seven-foot-something Food Disposal Unit. It's like having the Great White Shark from Jaws come to visit when he cruises the kitchen for snacks. Now working full-time as a whiz-kid computer programmer, he and his copious supply of science fiction novels and Japanese texts are closing in on their very own apartment, to which they are expected to move in the near future. The littler one is still shorter than I am, and I plan to keep it that way. I've been making her wear a brick on her head, and she's pretty good about it. Most of the time.
My husband, or as I like to call him, my patron of the literary arts, is a wonder -- he's relentless in his determination to ensure that every bookstore on the face of the planet carries my books. A veteran of the United Farmworkers boycotts of the 1970s, he gets this look of steely-eyed fanaticism whenever we pass a bookshop. "You go ahead," he always says. "I'm just going in to do a store-check." Booksellers cower in his wake. Meanwhile, our daughter has been wise in the ways of book promotion, since the tender age of 5. "Mummy, there's a bookstore," she'll say. "Don't you want to go in and sign some stock?" Or, when we're actually in the store, she'll walk up to innocently browsing strangers and announce, "My mummy's a published author, you know. She wrote the Katy Klein mystery series." Often, they then feel guilty enough to actually buy a copy. She gets her kickback later, usually in the form of ice cream.
Oh, and then there's my in-laws, aka my Montreal Promotion Team. My father-in-law, bless him, has become one of my biggest boosters, sending out countless copies of my books to friends and family around the globe. And he, too, does the store-check thing, cornering unsuspecting managers and buyers and extolling the wonders of my books. He's taken to carrying around a promo kit, and friends, he's not afraid to use it. My mother-in-law, meanwhile, has the unenviable job of relaying family and friends' comments to me. "Karen, why did you have to become an author," she'll say. "I just got off the phone with so-and-so, and he kept going on and on about your books..." All in all, I don't think I could ask for a more loving and supportive crew -- you guys are the best!
