Ask the Author: Kathleen Marple Kalb
Answered Questions (7)
Kathleen Marple Kalb
Thank you for asking! Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I've written a fourth Ella, and started outlining a fifth, but so far the publisher has not indicated interest. There's also the possibility of putting it out as an indie -- but that would be further down the road.
Kathleen Marple Kalb
At every radio station where I've worked, the staff gets trapped at work at least once a winter -- or hurricane season. I've always thought it was a perfect setting for a locked-room mystery...though the victim changes depending on my mood!
Kathleen Marple Kalb
I get to make it all up! I'm a journalist by profession, and it's a lot of fun to be able to decide how the story ends for a change. I also get to go somewhere else and be someone else for a while. It can be a pretty scary and nasty world right now, and I really like being able to open up my laptop and live in a place where I make the rules and decide what happens! Hint: in my world, you're kind -- or else.
Kathleen Marple Kalb
Do. The. Work. Yes, there are a tiny number of people who are lucky and talented enough that they will go from a good idea to a multi-book deal in the blink of an eye. Most of us are not those people. I know I'm not. So you have to do all the hard work of writing and revising that amazing idea into something great. And then you're going to have to go out there and convince agents and editors to believe too, which means you need to learn and follow the conventions of the industry so your message gets through. Bottom line: never give anyone a reason to weed you out, never be so in love with yourself and your words that you can't revise, and never, ever give up.
Kathleen Marple Kalb
Polishing the next Ella Shane mystery and plotting out future installments. No spoilers, but Ella's next New York production is going to be very interesting, and not just for what happens onstage. I'm also working on a couple of different contemporary projects.
Kathleen Marple Kalb
Inspiration is nice, but a lot of it is just doing the work. I do wake up with a great idea sometimes, or read a news story and think, wow, I could do something with that. And I love thinking through ideas when I walk. In the end, though, I just sit down and write. Every day, whether it's any good or not. You really don't know what you have until it gets out of your head onto the page (screen!) and start working with it.
Kathleen Marple Kalb
I grew up reading Regency romances and all kinds of social history, and I always wondered why the guy got to do all the swashbuckling. Somewhere along the line I read about trouser roles, women singing male opera characters, and that idea stuck in my mind. Years later, when I was kicking around ideas, I remembered the (very old) convention at some radio stations that men are supposed to open the hour -- someone once jokingly told me when I was anchoring top of the hour that I was doing the "boy shift." It all came together into Ella, a woman who fences like a man on and off stage, but is still very much a lady.
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