Tag Archive for: Jacqueline Winspear

Cameron Diaz and Women’s Liberation

/in /by
 by Kay Kendall                              

                                                                               

I don’t know about you, but I feel relieved. Various TV morning shows and
a plethora of online sources that follow celebrities’ doings say I can check
one thing off my worry list. Movie actress Cameron Diaz “is not going to die an
old maid.”
Really? In this day and age, wouldn’t you think that opinion was old hat?
What is this—the 1950s?
Lest you taunt me for being frivolous, I assure you my musings are quite serious
about the wedding of Ms. Diaz (42) and rocker Benji Madden (35). For the last
two years I’ve thought a good deal about how far we women have come, baby, as I
developed my mystery set against a women’s liberation background. Rainy Day Women takes place in 1969. Those
were early days in what is known now as Second Wave Feminism. (First Wave took
place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, keying on legal issues,
primarily women’s right to vote).
From the vantage point of 2015, looking back at the sixties, you could assume
the women’s movement had changed many attitudes about appropriate behavior for
women. And then you slam into nasty offhand comments about poor Cameron Diaz. Believe me, this actress is no wallflower. Her dalliances with celebrity
boyfriends are the stuff of legend. To name only a few, there were heart throb
Justin Timberlake, Oscar winner Jared Leto, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and
even P. Diddy  AKA Sean Combs.
With that dating background, Cameron Diaz needs a better commentary on
her marriage that took place on January 5. She deserves to be compared to
Warren Beatty, famous playboy who settled down with wife Annette Benning when
he was all of 55. They wed, had children, and are evidently living happily ever
after. When that happened, no one proclaimed he had been saved from a life of sad
bachelorhood.
This blog topic was thrust upon me when a longtime pal shared her ire
over media jabs at Ms. Diaz. My friend said, “A woman has many other ways to
fulfill herself or prove her worth than through marriage. Why hasn’t everyone
gotten beyond that narrow, old-fashioned opinion by now?”
Why indeed? Great question.
When I began writing Rainy Day
Women, my intent was to show the kinds of issues bedeviling women
45 years ago. They flooded into consciousness raising groups with senses of
despair over choices offered them in life—and then left those meetings
emboldened to follow their own paths. Despite being called unfeminine or
derelict of their familial duties, they set out to take control of their own
destinies.
Clearly there are still some people who want women to remain in
traditional roles no matter what. Female emancipation still scares many.
My husband likes to tell about the time he was traveling in Asia for
business and a male executive delivered a stunning view. “There are three
sexes in the world,” the man said. “There are men, women, and American women.”
My husband did not find that amusing. Rather, he shakes his head when he tells
the story, disturbed at such prejudice.
Okay then, I will now proudly place myself in that third category. If being
an American woman means I stand up for my rights as a person then, yes, I will
do that.
And as for Cameron Diaz, who has often gone on record as being uninterested
in marriage, I would tell her this: “Honey, you just go right on living as you
choose. Unmarried, married, or divorced—it is all up to you.” In short, you go,
girl! 
*******   

Kay Kendall set her
debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows
her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn’t murder
women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical
mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear
accomplishes for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture
the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive
who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills.
Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show
she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 
 *******

KK Exposed—Author Interview

/in /by
By Kay Kendall
Here
is a revealing interview I did some months back with Kings River Life, the
California-based online weekly magazine. See if you can spot the secret I divulge!
How long have you been writing?    

I began with my own
version of “The Night Before Christmas” at age seven. Later I wrote essays,lots of English major/then history grad student papers, then news releases and
annual reports during my long career as a public relations executive. In 1998 I
began writing fiction. Gloria
Steinem said it best: “Writing is the only thing I do that I don’t feel like I
should be doing something else.”

When did your first novel come out
and what was it about? My first novel is
DESOLATION ROW—AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY, published in March 2013 by Stairway
Press of Seattle. After Austin marries her college boyfriend, they move from
their native Texas to a foreign country. She has trouble coping with so much
change—and then her husband is jailed for murder. Alone, far from home, Austin
must find the real killer. When she also becomes a captive, things go from bad
to worse. Danger stalks two young lives and a new marriage. This fraught love
story rages through social upheaval and anti-war protests. Canada in 1968—surprisingly
hazardous.

Have you always written
mysteries/suspense? If not what else have you written?  My
first completed fiction manuscript was a literary novel. It did not sell. I put
it away and gave up writing fiction, but only temporarily. I still felt called
to write so I took up genre writing. I devoured nothing but mysteries for two
whole years and then began to write my own.

Do you write to entertain or is there
something more you want the readers to take away from your work? I’m
an anomaly in this modern world. I love learning about the past. It helps me
understand how we got from back there to here. If I can tell an entertaining
story that has some accurate historical detail to it, then I figure it’s an
easy way to help people swallow some history that I think they should be aware
of.

Do you have a schedule for your
writing or just write whenever you can? Pretty
much I write whenever I can. That said, I do have a pattern, based on sharing a
house with a husband who is now retired and, although respectful of my writing
life, deserves attention. Generally I write from noon until six in the evening.  
Do you outline or just wing it? I
work from a basic outline. It’s like a road map. I know the basic route but add
colorful detail—and red herrings—as I travel down that road.
 If you had your ideal, what time of day would
you prefer to write? I work routinely from noon to about six p.m. However, in an ideal world I’d
continue into late night. When I’m revising for publication under an editor’s
hand—a stage I adore—then I can write for forty-eight hours straight—with brief
timeouts for an occasional nap.  
Did you find it difficult to get
published in the beginning?
Oh
heck yes! Almost everyone does!
Do you have a great
rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?  A
well-respected publishing house for mysteries almost took my book, DESOLATION
ROW. Three editors liked it, the fourth—the
head honcho—did not. When she and I talked on the phone, she voiced two
quibbles. First, she didn’t like that it was set in Canada, since “Americans
don’t want to read about Canada.” (I bit my tongue to keep from saying—“You’ve
heard of Louise Penny, haven’t you?”) Then she said that my writing about draft
resisters during the Vietnam War did not tally with her memories. She concluded by saying that she usually didn’t
revisit a manuscript, but if I made some changes, she would review mine again.
I thanked her and hung up. She and I would not have been a marriage made in
publishing heaven. Two weeks later I had a contract from Ken Coffman, publisher
of Stairway Books in Seattle. He and his crew are ideal to work with. 
What are your future writing goals?  I’ve
embarked on my Austin Starr mystery series. My next will be out in June 2015, RAINY
DAY WOMEN. I plan at a minimum four books and hope for even more. God willing
and the creeks don’t rise…as the saying goes in Texas.
What kind of research do you do?  Because
I write about an era that I lived through, I do little research. I write from
memory, and then when I throw in specific place details or real historical
figures, I do a bit of online research to ensure accuracy. For DESOLATION ROW,
I had a justice of the Ontario Supreme Court read it to ensure accurate representation
of the criminal justice system in Toronto in 1968.
What do you read?  Historical
fiction, the occasional literary novel, and masses of mysteries and spy
stories. Also well-written thrillers, but I’m picky about those. Most of them
are just slam-bang things so they don’t interest me much. However, my favorite
novels of all time are JANE EYRE and ANNA KARENINA. 
What is something people would be
surprised to know about you?  I married
a Canadian and lived in Canada for two decades, an American in an unexpectedly different
land. I also was offered work with the CIA, but decided to study history in
graduate school instead. The spy world has always fascinated me, still does,
but now I’m glad I didn’t end up there. But I sure do love it in fiction.  
            
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
               *******    
          


Kay Kendall set DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel
is Rainy Day Women, will be out in 2015. Her amateur sleuth Austin
Starr must prove her best friend didn’t murder women’s
liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical
mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear
accomplishes for England in the 930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture
the spirit of the age. Kay’s an award-winning international PR executive living in Texas with husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Allergic to bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show
she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 
 *******

A Sneak Peek at My New Mystery

/in /by
By Kay Kendall

Today
marks a red letter day for me. I sent the manuscript of my second Austin Starr
mystery to my publisher, Stairway Press of Seattle. Part of my celebration is
sharing with you a short excerpt from the book, RAINY DAY WOMEN, to be
published in June 2015.
The
tale is set in 1969, when my amateur sleuth Austin Starr is now the harried
young mother of a three-month-old son. Despite her family duties—to husband and
son—and the demands of her grad student career, she rushes to the aid of her
best friend, Larissa. She is a prime suspect in the murder of the leader of her
women’s liberation group in Vancouver. Soon another member of a women’s group
in Seattle is killed. Austin must find the real killer before her friend is
jailed for murder.
In
the excerpt below, Austin questions Mia, a friend of the dead women’s
liberation leader, Shona. I hope you dig
the sixties atmosphere, when in my book the Pacific Northwest is drenched in
blood, not rain, for a change.

 *******
 “I’m busting to
know what you think of him. Tell me.” I guess my voice got loud because two
passersby gawked at us.

Mia rolled her eyes to the heavens. “More questions.” A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Jack always said I was ballsy. Of course, I took that as a
compliment. He doesn’t like wimps. The problem with Jack and me, however, was
that we were competitors.”

“At
what?” I said.

“We
competed for Shona’s time, attention, and affection. Jack and I never talked
about it, but my sense is we both knew what was going on. He worked at getting
under my skin, and he succeeded. Jack belittled everything I did, called me
‘poor little rich girl.’ He was jealous of my wealthy family, but I wouldn’t let
Shona tell him how I’d been sexually abused.”

“Sounds
tricky for you to put up with. What happened when he succeeded in getting under
your skin. How did you react?”

She
ran her hands through her short hair and gazed across the street at the tall
trees on campus. I let her drown in her own thoughts for a while, hoping she’d
come out with something useful in solving the puzzle of two deaths. Or, at the
least, one—Shona’s.

After
a few moments, she turned to me and took off her sunglasses. “Once Jack and I
came to blows at a party, and I was the one who ended up throwing the first
punch. He was a drinker, and I did dope. In my experience, our two types don’t
mix well. That night he was ragging on me about being rich, and I had reached
my limit. I drew back my arm, aiming for his arrogant mug, but Shona jumped
between us. I pulled the punch, and it hit her shoulder instead, but not a hard
blow. Jack cackled in triumph and started pushing my buttons again, making
nasty taunts. With Shona there, I pulled my punches in general and just stomped
off.”

“Then
I guess you won’t have an unbiased answer to my next question.”

“Go
ahead,” she said. “Shoot.”

“Could
Jack have murdered Shona, and perhaps Bethany, too?”

“My
honest opinion?”

“Yes,
please.”

 “Jack could be the murderer.” Mia stopped and
put her sunglasses back on. “Absolutely, and there is no doubt in my mind.” 
*******
Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR
MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel is Rainy Day Women, will be out in
2015. Her amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best
friend didn’t murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and
Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what
novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 930s–write
atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an
award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband,
three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she
loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 
 *******

Changing My Life Style

/in /by

by Kay Kendall

Five years ago I left my
public relations career of three decades and devoted myself to writing full-time.
I thought I knew what this would be like, but I was so wrong. My expectation
was that my life would be solitary, with little outside contact. My world would
shrink and my conversations grow few and far between—held mostly with my
husband, my dog Wills, and our three house rabbits. Well…wrongo!
Instead, my friend
list—both real and virtual—has multiplied like crazy. I converse with new people
all the time and have never been happier. Sure, I do spend hours in what I
fondly call my writer’s lair, dreaming up mystery plots and scheming villains.
But when I need a break, I go online and talk to my virtual friends all over
the continent or attend an author’s event. If it’s my own, I hang out with my
readers, and if it’s for other writers, I talk to writers I admire.  

T. Jefferson Parker and me

I don’t know if this is
true for authors who write in categories other than mystery/thrillers, but in
this genre, the writers are fantastically warm and welcoming. I expected the readers to be generous, but the
friendliness of other mystery authors was a wonderful surprise.
A case in point was a
signing event last night at Houston’s great Murder by the Book. T. Jefferson
Parker talked about his latest novel, FULL MEASURE.  He has written twenty acclaimed mysteries
over the course of his thirty-year writing career, and I’ve read and enjoyed
many of them. I first met him at the annual ThrillerFest conference held by
International Thriller Writers each July in New York City. That was in 2013
when my debut mystery was released. We shared experiences of writing a
book with the Vietnam War as a background. I talked to him again at
ThrillerFest in 2014, introducing myself again because I didn’t expect him to
remember me, even though we had emailed a few times. He said, “Of course I
remember you, Kay.”
His opening words at
last night’s event were, “Great to see you, Kay.” Well, if one of your writing
heroes says that, of course your sense of well-being soars. We talked about books, and he shared the
genesis of his new book, his first literary novel. A young Marine returns from hard duty in Afghanistan to find his America riven
by discord and his family farm under threat from the economic collapse of 2008.
I’m eager to read what this wonderful author has to say on these important
subjects. (He is only one of three writers who’ve won more than one Edgar Award.)
Some of my new friends are writers on this blog.
As a matter of fact, I am a participant because Linda Rodriguez invited me into
the Stiletto Gang after I met her just briefly. Gang member Majorie Brody and I did a book tour together in Alabama and met another gang member at Killer Nashville a few months ago, Debra H. Goldstein. So far other gang members are online friends whom I hope to meet some day soon. Again, mystery authors are
wonderful! My life is now quite literally a dream come true.
Lest you think it’s this
way with all groups of writers, I hear it is NOT so! A mystery novelist on a
Bouchercon panel a few years ago said he often went to meetings with his wife, a poet, and when poets gather, it gets downright chilly, and even vicious. Therefore he was stunned at his first attendance at
Bouchercon to find all the mystery authors so welcoming. That was my first
Bouchercon too, and I had just put my toe into the big ocean of mystery authors.
 I can’t speak for poets (Linda Rodriguez can though), but I guarantee you, mystery/thriller authors are
wonderful people.
Have you had similar experiences
with mystery authors or readers? I hope you have, and if so, I’d love to hear your tales. Please share.
 *******
                                                                                                                                                                        

Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel, RAINY DAY WOMEN, comes out next year. Amateur sleuth
Austin Starr must prove her best friend didn’t murder women’s
liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries,
Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes
for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the
spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel
Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles
show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 

 *******

Saving Private Ryan—and Everyone Else Too

/in /by

By Kay Kendall

Many anniversaries in the
last few weeks remind us of the wretched world wars that ripped apart the
twentieth century. Right off the top of my head, here are three important dates:
* June 6, 2014—70th
anniversary of D-Day.
* June 28, 2014—100th
anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, precipitating incident
of World War I.   

* June 30, 2014—80th
anniversary of “Night of the Long Knives” in Germany, when Hitler ordered murders of his Storm Troop leadership, thus cementing ties between the
Nazi regime and the German Army.

Those first two dates
received lots of publicity, but the third did not. June 30 was an important event that enabled Hitler to become Führer of National Socialist Germany and to claim absolute power.
Sometime in my
twenties I realized that I think about war and its fallout far more than most
females do. War is so common that many take it for granted, I think. But consider
this: Some psychologists estimate that it takes three generations—three!—for the
effect of having a family member serve in combat to work its way through the
offspring.  Now, multiply that times the
millions who served in both World Wars I and II, and then you begin to get a
sense of how enormous and long-lasting is the legacy of twentieth century
battles.

I also study history,
enjoying every detail, trying to understand why events turned out the way they
did…and also what could have been done to change tragic outcomes. There are
others like me, but far more people keep track of the Kardashians’ activities
than they do historical dates.


Because of this, and
because I think it is critical to know something about history and not to
forget lessons learned, I have chosen in my own small way to write about a long
ago era. If you set a fictional story within an accurate backdrop, then readers
can pick up a sense of the time and place almost by osmosis. My chosen era is
the Vietnam War.

Mystery authors who
have inspired me include Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, and Jacqueline Winspear. Each
of these writers has new books out this year. Furst and Kerr set their
thrillers within the lead up to and early years of World War II. Winspear has a
famous series about Maisie Dobbs, a nurse in World War I. Her current book,
however, is a standalone called The Care
and Management of Lies. She is the third generation in her family since her
grandfather was gassed in the trenches of France. Her father fought in World
War II. She thinks and reads about war and its aftermath and writes about it
too. The Care and Management of Lies is
her homage to the Great War, and she describes eloquently why she wrote it, see
http://thecareandmanagementoflies.com/camol-inspiration.php
Many moviegoers were made aware of the
importance of D-Day by director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. Since then Hanks
has produced and participated in many films and television shows that memorialize
that great conflict, World War II. The enormity of that war seems to get into
your soul and will not let you go.
World War II is often cited as the “good
war,” the one that was necessary to fight. On the other hand, World War I,
originally called “the war to end all wars,” sadly did not live up to its name.
In fact, historians now see the two great wars as parts of the same whole.
Philosopher George Santayana famously
wrote, “Those who cannot remember
the past are condemned to repeat it.”

If we do not
want to produce millions more Private Ryans who must eventually be saved (or
brought home in body bags), we need to ponder how humanity bumbles into wars
so easily, and then decide what we as citizens can do to stop this idiocy.
Waging war is too significant to be left to politicians alone.
*******


Kay Kendall’s debut novel, Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery, takes place in 1968. Mysteries about World Wars I and II inspired her to use the Vietnam
War to illuminate reluctant courage and desperate love when a world teeters on
chaos. 

Kay’s work in progress is Rainy
Day Women, when her amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best friend
didn’t murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. She is an
award-winning international PR executive living in Texas with husband, three
house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to bunnies, she loves them
anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too.
Discover more about  DESOLATION ROW, here at
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com