Interview With Author Maeve Kim
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve been writing since I was eleven. My first “novel” was a few pages on wide-lined paper, in pencil, about the mysterious disappearance of peanut butter from the family kitchen. Years later, I had a few short pieces of erotica published in a small magazine. I raised my two daughters alone and had two jobs, so I had to write little bits and pieces whenever I could find the time. I finally self-published a novel in the early 2000s, set in a busy restaurant and titled “There’s Nothing 86 Tonight”. I had several articles published in birding magazines and local newspapers. Then I started writing literary romance novels that combined by love of nature and birds with my passion for happy endings. The Wild Rose Press has published two of a series, with a third coming out this fall, and has accepted my first historical romance.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The two books now with The Wild Rose Press are “Just a Simple Love Affair” and an as-yet-untitled historical romance set in Montana in 1890. The first is part of a series, Love Stories of the Burlington Bird Club, and came about when I realized I’d come to love one of the lesser characters and wanted to share his story. The historical romance was inspired by two wonderful visits to central Montana, one to go hiking with my daughter and the other to go birding with a group of naturalists.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I doubt this is unusual, but I keep a notepad and pencil next to the bed so I can jot down ideas that come in the middle of the night. At the computer, sometimes writing pours out, pages and even chapters at a time. More often I have to work at it. The book I’m working on now has been rewritten, rethought, edited and revised dozens of times as I seek to “listen” to what the two main characters are telling me about themselves.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
For many years, I read mostly murder mysteries and plays. But then my older daughter left a big box of romances and I got hooked. I’ve read and reread many books by Elizabeth Lowell, Anne McAllister, and others.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on the fourth in the series Love Stories of the Burlington Bird Club. The club is fictitious, as are the characters, but the birds and nature scenes are accurate and realistic. I lived with Ivy and Hugh, from the first book, for years and I still see them as real people I have known and enjoyed. The current book features the mother of the youngest birder, a solitary woman made more solitary by traumatic events from before her son was born. I’m enjoying developing her energetic 12-year-old son and revisiting her father, who features in books one and two.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Oh dear – I have no good method. I love, love, love writing and have learned to hate promoting. I don’t have a “social media presence” because I won’t support sites run by supporters of the current president. (My beloved daughters are Asian-American, and both have been threatened by men who told them there’s no place for them in Trump’s America. I fear for them every day.) I have done readings in local libraries and museums, and I e-mailed more than 200 birding clubs across the nation. I’m going to host a release party at the local community center when “Just A Simple Love Affair” comes out. All of these are, of course, small stuff compared to real advertising.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Fall in love with your characters. Get to know them. Think of them as neighbors. As you write, constantly ask yourself, “Is this in keeping with this character’s personality? History? Likes and dislikes?” Make them real!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I have a huge file of quotes that spoke to me when I first came across them, and still speak to me every time I reread them. Here are two: sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think (from a thirteenth century writer named Jalalud’din Rumi). And something like this (I can’t find the whole quote): This is the secret of life – to be completely engaged in what you are doing, here and now.
What are you reading now?
I just finished “Where the Crawdads Sing” and am now rereading an old P.D. James mystery.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Finish the book I’ve been working on, and then polish another novel I wrote several years ago and submit it also to Wild Rose Press.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Wow! Hard question! Maybe one of my favorite Elizabeth Lowell books, one of the early romances like “Outlaw” so I can have old friends with me and relive their learning to love. And a big fat book of short stories. And the first one of my Love Stories of the Burlington Bird Club, so I can bask in the pleasure of living with those characters.
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