Author Q&A With Kathleen Marple Kalb
Kathleen Marple Kalb is an anchor, author, mom…not in that order. The Agatha-nominated author of short stories and more than a dozen novels, she’s also a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio. Under her own name, and as Nikki Knight, she’s written four mystery series, and short stories published in top mystery magazines, anthologies, and online, and short-listed for National Excellence in Storytelling, Black Orchid Novella, and Derringer awards. Active in writers’ groups, she’s currently a Marketing and Communications Liaison on the National Board of Sisters in Crime, and a past VP of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and NY/Tri-State SinC. She and her family live in a Connecticut house owned by a large calico cat. Meet Kathleen:
You are an author, but is it your day job? If not, what fills your days? I like to describe myself as an author/anchor/mom…not in that order. Weekdays, I’m a stay-at-home mom in suburban Connecticut. Weekends, holidays, and during vacation season, I’m a morning news anchor at 1010 WINS, New York’s top all-news radio station. I write whenever I have five minutes and a flat surface for the laptop.
Did you always want to be an author? From the time I started “borrowing” my grandpa’s murder mysteries, I wanted to write (I really WAS born Miss Marple, so it’s destiny!), And I’ve been writing fiction since I was in middle school. When I was sixteen, I wrote a historical novel and actually tried to sell it. A few editors read, but no one bought – thank goodness! For most of the next quarter-century, I focused on radio, occasionally writing a little fiction for fun. Then, when my son started kindergarten, I suddenly had time to write, and I dove back into mysteries. It took five years, two submission cycles with two different agents, and a couple of hundred rejections (most in the middle of a family health crisis)…and then my first book came out in the middle of the 2020 lockdown! But I’m still here and still writing.
What is your most recent book, and what inspired you to write it?
The Stuff of Malice, is the third in the Old Stuff Mystery series. The series is a modern spin on classic cozies: we have a relatable amateur sleuth, widowed historian Christian Shaw, who’s involved with law enforcement, her new boyfriend, prosecutor Joe Poli, in a cute little town, with lots of quirky locals, fun animals, and screwball fun. But the cast is diverse, including Christian’s “two dads” – her mentor and his husband; her rabbi; and her young son, who has a photographic memory and Type-1 Diabetes. My whole approach to mysteries is modern cozy: all the warmth and joy of a traditional cozy in a world that looks like ours, with satisfying resolutions that hit on a bunch of levels.
How do you hope your book will uplift readers? Hopefully, they’ll enjoy the escape into a warm, accepting, and interesting community, where nothing too bad happens to anyone we like, and everything turns out all right in the end. Just as importantly, though, I hope they’ll take inspiration from the way a wide variety of people from vastly different backgrounds work happily and respectfully together as a community. We don’t have to be – or think – exactly alike to be friends and found family, or to protect each other and our community.
How do you handle setbacks and criticism? I’ve learned a couple of tough, but helpful, lessons along the way. First, rejection is often not about the quality of your work and is rarely a personal judgment. It’s simply “No, today,” on one submission. Don’t give it more power than it deserves. As for criticism, after a lifetime in newsrooms, I see revisions and edits differently than many people from a creative writing background. Critiques are not personal, just about making the work better, and I do my best to welcome them. Honest, constructive criticism is a gift. Take it with the respect it deserves.
How do you structure your day and make time for writing? I really do write whenever I have five minutes and a flat surface for the laptop! For me, it’s about working it in when I can. I love the idea of quiet, elegant spaces and consistent writing practice…but that’s not my life. When there’s a lull in the action – after breakfast is made and lunch packed, between school pickup and homework, on the train home from work – anytime I can find time to write or plot, I do.
What do you find most fulfilling in the career that you’ve chosen? Being a comforting voice in the dark. Several times in my career, I’ve had the privilege of being on the air during hurricanes and blizzards in New York, times when people were without power for days, listening for information on battery-powered radios. As the City’s legacy all-news station, we were the ones New Yorkers turned to, keeping them informed and, hopefully, providing a little consolation. Radio news anchoring is often fun, and outsiders probably find it a bit glamorous, but I’m proudest of those dark days and nights.
Anything else you’d like to share with your readers? I keep a list of the “best bad things” that have happened to me. The job offer I didn’t get, the deserved promotion that went to someone else, the guy I thought I wanted who stopped calling, and so on. It can take a while, but I’ve learned life will put us where it wants us if we let it. Not that just plain bad things don’t happen – they absolutely do. But sometimes what feels like a reversal can put you on a great new path if you’re open to it.
Learn more about Kathleen and her books via her website.
