Karin Gillespie Reviews (3)

(Scroll Down for Interview)

Books:

As Karen Neches

Brief Bio:

Before becoming a novelist, Karin Gillespie was a special education teacher at an inner-city school and an editor of a regional parenting magazine. She was also a bi-monthly columnist for the Augusta Chronicle.

She has a son named Brandon and was a single mom for seventeen years. In May of 2005 she married a musician named David Neches. Karin maintains a web site and a popular publishing industry blog called "Diary of a Hype Hag" at www.karingillespie.com.

She travels the Southeast with three other Southern authors, and they call them selves the Dixie Divas. She is the founder of the Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit, a virtual tour for women novelists.

For the release of A Dollar Short: The Bottom Dollar Girls Go Hollywood, Karin will be embarking on the "Take Back the Tiara Tour" which will feature a red carpet, dime-store tiaras, and an essay contest for women.

My name is Karin (not Karen) Gillespie and it's pronounced “car in" as in your “car in” the street with its bumper hanging off? My mother, who gave me this troublesome moniker, pronounces it "car rean" in a lovely lilting Austrian accent. My southern friends sometimes call me "corn." ( as in "Children of the" ) My last name is pronounced the same as Dizzy's. (no relation)

(from author’s web-site, used with permission)

Author Website:  www.karingillespie.com

Author Interview:

Cozy Library: Elizabeth, one of the three “Bottom Dollar Girls” was the major focus of your first book, but that focus shifted in your second to Chiffon. Was that part of an overall plan?

Karin Gillespie: When I wrote Bet Your Bottom Dollar, I didn’t realize it was going to be the first in a series. My publisher wanted a second book, but I didn’t have anything more to say about Elizabeth. I like Elizabeth, she’s a really nice character, but I wanted someone feistier for A Dollar Short. As to future books, I have another one coming out in August, Dollar Daze. After that, I’m playing it by ear.

CL: It seems that many of the books I truly love are set in the south, with wonderful, strong women populating them. Do you think Southern Women are inherently more interesting as characters than Yankees?

KG: I’ve lived in Augusta GA since 1974, so what I see is southern women. I do think The South as a whole is more colorful than the rest of the country – the language alone, with its metaphors and similes. The south is known for its eccentricities and we’re more tolerant of that, so that’s why southern women seem more interesting to me.

Really, though, it’s small town women I’m interested in.  I’ll bet you’d find more eccentric characters in small towns all over the country – small towns tend to bring out the “characters.”

CL: The importance of female friendships or sister relationships is a core concept in much of the “cozy” or “gentle” fiction. In Bet Your Bottom Dollar, the friendship of Elizabeth, Mavis and Atalee is important to the plot. Did you model their intergenerational relationship on any you’ve known?

I was a special education teacher in an inner-city high school for eight years. In high schools, you have teachers of different ages, with older teachers mentoring younger women – so I was familiar with that. When I worked in a travel agency, it was the same thing. I guess you could say that all my jobs have been women-oriented – and friendships with somen have been a very strong factor in my life.

The newspaper column I used to write was “Sex and the City” meets “Desperate Housewives.” It was a humorous approach to everyday things women deal with: Internet dating, children and other women’s issues.

I think there are some women who get along well with men … then there are women’s women. That’s what I feel I am.

(CL: You can learn more about the Dixie Divas and The Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit on Karin’s website at www.karingillespie.com

CL: Many of the characters in your books could easily be classified as “eccentric,” but overall, they are pretty believable. How do you avoid crossing the line between “eccentric” and “totally off the wall” characters?

KG: There is a danger of going too far but I feel that, because I write humorous books, I have more license. One of elements of humor is exaggeration to my characters can be funnier than people are in real life. Sometimes I have to ask myself the questions “do I want to tell the joke, or make the character seem believable?” Sometimes I have to sacrifice the joke.

 Readers write me asking, “Do you know people like this?” I tell them yes, they do exist in small towns. Other fans write, “I know these people. They’re my neighbors and friends.” That makes me feel good.

I never have been able to choose what I write.  Writing humokr comes naturally to me. When I write, it comes out funny and when I try to write serious, it seems stilted.

CL: Your depiction of older characters (Atalee, Elizabeth’s Meemaw, Mrs. Tobias) is very sympathetic and non-stereotypical. I’m guessing you have older women in your life that you admire, right?

KG: I think it’s because I have always been around so many older women. My third book (coming out in August 2006), Dollar Daze is all about the older women and they’re all falling in love. I tried not to make their feelings seem too girlish, but my mother is 67, and she acts silly when she falls in love. She acts like she’s 15.

CL: Who are your favorite authors?

KG: Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Berg, Tom Perrotta and Anne Lamott. They’re all funny. I think we write what we’re attracted to so it’s hard to separate favorite authors from those who have influenced me.

 CL: Which authors influenced your writing?

KG: Now that I write southern stories, I read a lot more southern authors -- Ann B. Ross, Jan Karon, Philip Gulley, Lorna Landvik and Julie Cannon, who’s one of the  – one of the Dixie Divas. I discovered these people after I wrote my first book.

 CL: What are you reading right now?

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Depression has always interested me, maybe because I’ve not experienced it and don’t understand it. I’m also reading Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson, another Georgia writer.