My Hometown
My Boss is a Serial Killer is set in a fictional law firm in a fictional building , but the location is real. The Kansas City Plaza is a popular upscale shopping, entertainment and business area in our region of the country, well-known for its lighting ceremony at Christmas. I set most of my stories in Kansas City, and all of them in Missouri. This is my home!
I’ve lived in the Kansas City area for almost twenty years. Years ago, I was surprised (though maybe I shouldn’t have been) to discover that people outside the region think that Kansas City is in Kansas. Well, it is. At least, one of them is. There are two Kansas Cities, the big one in Missouri and the smaller one in Kansas, divided by the Missouri River.
I was raised in Jefferson City, which is Missouri’s capital, and sits almost exactly in the middle of the state. While growing up, "big city" trips always took us either to Kansas City, on the far western border of the state, or to St. Louis, almost due east on the opposite border. St. Louis is a beautiful place and has a lot to offer the tourist and the resident, but I always felt more affection for Kansas City, and I’m not surprised that I ended up here as an adult. My favorite Kansas City moments are the views I get of the skyline at sunrise and sunset, especially driving over the Paseo Bridge across the Missouri River. If you’d like to check out my hometown, check out my favorite websites on the topic:
kansascity.about.com
experiencekc.com
My Family
My husband and I have been married for seventeen years and do that irritating thing where we complete each other's sentences, think the same thing at the same time and can have entire conversations by quoting from an obscure movie. Friends will not let us play on the same team in any trivia game. We have one son who is, of course, brilliant and hilarious, and well on his way to being a stand-up comedian. Our dim-witted but lovable dog and our brainy but deadly cat chase each other through the house on a strict hourly schedule. The best part of my day is coming home to these characters.
Legal Secretarydom
I have worked as a legal secretary/paralegal for ten years. The most exciting cases on which I have worked have been plaintiffs' medical malpractice and employment discrimination cases. (Plaintiffs are the ones doing the suing, not the ones being sued.) Representing the underdog in a case always feels good. I have an English degree and have done a lot of graduate work in psychology (all but the thesis, as they say), so found a job as a paralegal to use both of these areas of education. I did paralegal work for almost three years before the stress simply became overwhelming for me, and I took on a legal secretary job instead, which in my case is a job with a lot less pressure. I still worked on the interesting cases, but was able to "leave work at work" and be there for my family when I got home.
Admittedly, office work is not a 24-hour funfest, but I am surrounded by great people and friends. Both lawyers and secretaries as groups get a lot of grief, and are the victims of a great deal of stereotyping. Don’t believe the hype! In my experience, the lawyers and secretaries I know work hard, care about their clients and are interested in doing the best job they can. Still, the field of law and office work are excellent fodder for parody. I do share my heroine Carol Frank’s opinion that Monday mornings and Wednesday afternoons are the pits.
Writing
I have written for pleasure since I can remember. I completed my first "novel" in the sixth grade, writing a chapter every night and taking it to school the next day to show my friend Courtney. She and I were the main characters in the book. This masterwork was written in different colors of magic marker on notebook paper, and I actually still have it. My mom told me to keep all the things I wrote, so thanks, mom!
Since that time it seems I have always been working on one novel or another, though most of the time, I wrote for an audience of one (me) and had no real intentions of showing them to anyone else. I took creative writing classes in high school and college, and wrote some short stories and poetry, but I have never felt as comfortable creating those as I have in creating novels. My weakness as a writer was in the ending, and I created many terrific beginnings and middles of books with absolutely no idea of a resolution. When I was writing for fun, the resolution of these books was usually to stop writing them and start writing something else.
Several years ago I decided I would try in earnest to write professionally. This meant, first of all, that I had to start writing books with endings, and secondly, that I had to learn how one goes about getting published. A great help to me in this area was the wonderful service of Writer's Relief. You can visit their website at www.writersrelief.com. Then I found my agent Barbara Braun, who bowled me over with her expertise and continues to do so. Throughout this experience, I've been supported by my family, who have been patient and terrific and uplifting. And did I mention patient?
Since that time it seems I have always been working on one novel or another, though most of the time, I wrote for an audience of one (me) and had no real intentions of showing them to anyone else. I took creative writing classes in high school and college, and wrote some short stories and poetry, but I have never felt as comfortable creating those as I have in creating novels. My weakness as a writer was in the ending, and I created many terrific beginnings and middles of books with absolutely no idea of a resolution. When I was writing for fun, the resolution of these books was usually to stop writing them and start writing something else.
Several years ago I decided I would try in earnest to write professionally. This meant, first of all, that I had to start writing books with endings, and secondly, that I had to learn how one goes about getting published. A great help to me in this area was the wonderful service of Writer's Relief. You can visit their website at www.writersrelief.com. Then I found my agent Barbara Braun, who bowled me over with her expertise and continues to do so. Throughout this experience, I've been supported by my family, who have been patient and terrific and uplifting. And did I mention patient?
Other Things About Me
I love, love, love to read. My favorite genres are thrillers, mysteries, romances, horror, psychological drama, comedies, chick-lit, children's books . . . well let's face it, I like to read just about anything. To me, the most important aspect of a book is a character interesting enough to follow. I listen to a great deal of recorded books, too, thanks to a long commute. Recorded books add another dimension to reading. Listening to a great narrator read a great book is a real pleasure.
I watch a lot of movies, and my tastes there are about as diverse as my taste in literature. I also do jigsaw puzzles and logic problems, play a lot of Scrabble and other games, and play simulations, role-playing games, adventure games and first-person shooters on the PC. My most embarrassing wish is to be a proficient square-dancer.
I watch a lot of movies, and my tastes there are about as diverse as my taste in literature. I also do jigsaw puzzles and logic problems, play a lot of Scrabble and other games, and play simulations, role-playing games, adventure games and first-person shooters on the PC. My most embarrassing wish is to be a proficient square-dancer.
Magic: The Gathering
A Little Challenge for Readers
A Little Challenge for Readers
My son and I enjoy playing a card game together called Magic: The Gathering. In tribute to our good times, I have inserted a Magic: The Gathering joke in My Boss is a Serial Killer. This isn’t really hard, but you have to know a little something about the game to spot it. Send me an email here if you do, referencing "Magic" in the subject line and tell me what you think the joke is. Once somebody gets it, I’ll credit him or her here and give a full explanation.