How It All Began, Part Two

Spot and his brothers, Jack and Pete

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, continuing with a theme I started with my last post. This time I’m looking back on my earliest attempt at writing non-fiction. Later I wrote and sold several books in this genre, including my Agatha-award-winning How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries. The first to be published, and also the first book I ever sold, was Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth-Century England (reissued, much enlarged and updated, as the original e-book A Who’s Who of Tudor Women). At about the same time (1984) Highlights for Children published my short story, “How Chester Greenwood Invented Earmuffs,” a piece I describe as fictionalized biography since Chester is a local hero here in Franklin County. Next came Making Headlines, a biography of reporter Nellie Bly for young readers (reissued as Nellie Bly, a Biography), but my biography-writing career actually started more than two decades earlier. Here’s the proof:

 

 

I didn’t take personal typing until senior year in high school, but I was able to hunt and peck at age 13, so I’m pretty sure I typed this myself, especially since I misspelled the last name of my mom’s best friend Lil.

my mom with Spot, 1967

I always loved reading biographies. They were right up there with reading girls’ mystery series when I was young. Somewhere in there, I started reading my father’s historical novels, too. I also kept diaries, but you’ll have to wait until my next post to read more about that aspect of how it all began.

Question for readers: Do you still have vivid memories of your childhood pets? And for the writers out there—do you use your own animals in your fiction?

Spot with Jeremiah, the first cat I acquired after getting married

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.