 BECOMING MADAM SECRETARY |
Spotlight on Kathy CarmichaelLike most writers, Kathy Carmichael started out as a voracious reader. She read everything: novels, iographies, magazines, box tops, maps, her sisters' diaries. She was a whirling reading dervish. Then one day, the worst thing happened. There was nothing left to read in her entire house that she hadn't already read a bazillion times before. That was when she first began to make her up own stories -- in the interests of entertaining herself. When asked about this, she said, "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I gotta do story." These days, Kathy writes romantic comedies, comedic mysteries, short stories, and bitter poetry targeted toward her sick obsession with various world figures. The poetry, btw, isn't published. It's stashed in a lock box in Poughkeepsie where authorities will never look. Kathy loves readers. She loves talking story. The problem is, when it comes to story, it's hard to shut her up. Diary of a Confessions Queen
Medallion Press Read An Excerpt
Complications in the life of an author I couldn’t figure out how to get a dead body down this embankment, about 50 feet above the water. I decided this would be a great place to dump a dead body!
I used this location, outside the city limits, for where Amy found a tarp. While I never found an exact duplicate of Amy’s house, this one helped as a working model.  This is a photo of me visiting the Chamber of Commerce. This made me think of Dolores’ historical home. It’s the perfect location for a séance, don’t you think? Alfie and I parked the car on this bridge over the Verdigris River and contemplated various ways to get a dead body over the railing. The Independence Police Department is in the basement of City Hall! When my doctor first learned that I was writing a mystery novel, he suggested we go out for coffee. Now mind you, he wasn’t suggesting a date. No. He wanted to go over some possible ways to off someone. Fortunately for me, the mystery I was writing was a little less complicated than that. For DIARY OF A CONFESSIONS QUEEN I didn’t need obscure and untraceable poisons. I didn’t need to learn about bullet entrances and exits. What I needed was a good body of water. If an author is writing about an imaginary location, creating a decent body of water isn’t difficult. But when you’re writing about a real location, it gets a bit more complicated. Not only do you need the sizable body of water, in my case the Verdigris River, but I also needed to know what direction the water flows in and exactly where the water ends up. Is there a dam? Is there a lake? Does it empty into a larger body of water? And then there was the issue of making all of this work for my story. The crime needed to be investigated by a city police detective, rather than the county sheriff’s office. But where do the city lines stop and the county lines start? I had to visit the Independence Police Department to find out. Luckily for me, my critique partner, Alfie Thompson, came with me – otherwise, I might be serving time for contemplating murder. When we entered the police department, my first questions were whether they had a map of the territory covered by the city police and if a murder was committed in town, would they investigate or would they turn it over to the state police? A very tall, I mean really truly tall, police detective left his office when he heard my question and ambled over to where Alfie and I stood talking with the administrative assistant, Tammy Freeman. He wanted to know why I wanted to know. Alfie nudged me and said, “Explain that you’re an author.” This is one of many reasons why it’s good to have wonderful friends. I quickly pulled a bookmark from my handbag and explained I was working on novel. Tammy took out a map and drew the boundaries on it for me. What a gem she is! Once we finished grilling the police, Alfie and I drove around the city, hunting for great places to dump a dead body. I hope you enjoy some of my research pictures of the Independence, Kansas locations in DIARY OF A CONFESSIONS QUEEN. To promote DIARY OF A CONFESSIONS QUEEN, Medallion Press cooked up a little fun with an Action Interview / radio play based on my book. I had a blast recording this. In it, I play not only myself, but also two of the characters. Can you guess who they are? Here’s the link to listen. But be warned, it starts playing right away! |
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