Author Interview – Kathleen Shoop

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life?  If I put aside what I do every day to hopefully raise, loving, generous, productive, human beings, I would say it’s a tie between earning my PhD and publishing my own books. There has never been an experience that lived up to its billing, that provided such a sense of accomplishment as when I finished that PhD program. I remember getting a call from one of the dissertation committee members before my defense. I pressed the button on the answering machine, wondering if this guy was going to say, “forget the defense, this is awful…” I wrote about a culture and community that was not mine, but was his and that left me open to having possibly interpreted data in all sorts of “wrong,” ways. But he said he thought it was an incredible dissertation that really said something different about the population of people I studied. I collapsed into the kitchen chair and burst into tears, just like you’d imagine a person bursting into tears. The feeling was like no other. Except for the pride I feel in self-publishing. People sometimes say it’s taking the easy way out. I know that whoever says that has never done it. To take a book from disparate ideas to a solid product people want to read without the help of an all-knowing expert to guide me through it feels pretty darn good.

What is your favorite color? Red

What is your favorite food? Seafood

What’s your favorite place in the entire world? Kiawah Island, South Carolina. It’s absolute heaven.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? I had so much fun growing up, hanging out with friends, experiencing all the stuff every human does, but I kept replaying certain scenes and events in my head and reliving them that way, almost as though recalling them was better than originally living them. I kept thinking, “I have to write this down, I have to capture this moment, this feeling, this person!” At the same time, I found myself rambling on and on about all sorts of things that I felt passionate about, but it occurred to me, hearing someone’s voice for too long is grating. It was then I figured, “Hey, write it down then if someone wants to read what I think, they’ll read it…” No grating necessary. That combined with my family history of everyone being buried in books sort of sealed my fate. Oh, and my dad writes every day of his life. He doesn’t care about being published, the writing itself is paramount to him.

How long have you been writing? I’ve been writing fiction for 13 or 14 years, but it was when my son was born prematurely and I reduced my workload to be at home more that I decided I would treat writing as my job—even with my regular, formal part-time work.

Five authors contribute five novellas to this romantic collection set over centuries, in one home on the Albemarle Sound.

Home is where the heart is…

One stately residence on North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound. Five stories of heart-warming romance. Told against the backdrop of the Civil War, the loss of an unsinkable ship, the patriotic zeal of the second world war, the heart-rending conflict of Vietnam, and the thrill of modern day Nascar, Jamie Denton, S. K. McClafferty, Kathleen Shoop, Marcy Waldenville, and J. D. Wylde deliver a variety pack of poignant, sexy, and sweet.

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Genre – Romance

Rating – R

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