Dayton novelist encourages crowd to "write the book"
By Patricia M. Albrecht
May 22, 2011
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Summary: Katrina Kittle, author of several novels, was the guest speaker at the second installment of the 2011 author's program at the TCPL on May 19. Much of Kittle's work deals with social issues and their effects on individuals and their families.
Dayton novelist encourages crowd to write the book
By Patricia M. Albrecht
Author Katrina Kittle, who spoke at the second installment of the 2011 author series at the New Philadelphia Public Library on May 19, recited her favorite quote: Leap, and a net will appear, encouraging those present who are interested in writing to have faith and write their book.
You have to be willing to do the work, said Kittle. Many people talk about writing, but they dont begin. You have to make it exist. I worked on my first book six or seven years before I even thought about getting an agent. I read every fiction book I could and started attending writers conferences.
Born in Illinois and moving to Dayton in first grade, Kittle recalls books being one of her familys prized possessions. Her mother is a retired preschool teacher, and she refers to her father as a voracious chain reader.
My parents always told me they knew I would be able to take care of myself when I was older, but they said it was more important that I remember to feed my soul, said Kittle.
After attending Ohio University, she taught English and theater at Centerville High School for five years.
Following Centerville, she went on to teach middle school English and theater at the Miami Valley School in Dayton. She earned a MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University in Louisville.
During her years freelancing as a childrens theater director and creative writing instructor, she spent time working in case management support at the AIDS Foundation Miami Valley (now the AIDS Resource Center).
In the early 90s, said Kittle, I would hear very good people say disturbing things about people with AIDS. I thought Id write a book about AIDS that might change how some people thought about it. Human resilience fascinates me-people broken and overcoming their obstacles. All of my books start with a social issue and end in an uplifting way by focusing on redemption. I do a lot of research for my books including asking people lots of questions. When I mentioned one of my social issues would be about marriage some people laughed, but I wanted to know why people thought they should get married. Most people in our culture dont think about the marriage. They concentrate on the wedding. And, I wanted to know why so many end in divorce. I wanted to research this so I knew what would make the character in my book stay married or get a divorce. Even though I dont think marriage is always necessary, Im still a big fan of it.
Kittles books include Traveling Light (2000), Two Truths and a Lie (2001), The Kindness of Strangers
(2006), and The Blessings of the Animals (2010). She won the 2006 Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction for The Kindness of Strangers. The Blessings of the Animals was an Indie Next pick, a Midwest Connections pick, and was chosen by the Womens National Book Association as one of the ten Great Group Reads for National Book Group Month. The Chicago Tribune has called her writing compulsively readable.
Blessings opens with: On the morning my husband left me , said Kittle. The reader knows something the character doesnt. A writer should be moralizing or giving answers. I had gotten divorced after 14 years myself, which caused a shift in my writing. I had a much deeper understanding of what I was writing about.
The Kindness of Strangers story idea came about after Kittle met a ten-year-old boy who was HIV positive during one of her school residencies. Although the novel is not about him, she says he was the genesis behind it. His birth parents, now in prison, were a white couple from an affluent suburb who had prostituted him for drug money. He had contracted the virus from this abuse.
His story devastated me, said Kittle, but his personality, resilience, and sense of humor inspired me.
Following a question and answer segment, that Kittle notes is her favorite part of speaking engagements, she signed copies of her books. The Friends of the Library provided refreshments before the close of the author program.
Katrina Kittles next book, Reasons to Be Happy, will be published in this fall.
More information about Katrina and her books can be found on her website at: katrinakittle.com
A new quote that inspires me, says Kittle, is from Julia Camerons The Sound of Paper. She writes, In
order to make art, we must first make an artful life, a life rich enough and diverse enough to give us fuel.
