I’d like to welcome the wonderful Kathleen Kaska to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

Favorite thing to do when you have free time:

I love just hanging around with my husband, watching baseball, reading, and enjoying the outdoors. I love going for a long run, hiking through the forestland, and beachcombing.

The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list:

Trying to figure out anything on the computer that requires technical support.

Things you need when you’re in your writing cave:

Peace and quiet and a bottle of water.

Things that distract you from writing: Knowing that I have a lot of promoting to do. It’s an unnerving balancing act.

Hardest thing about being a writer: Tying up loose ends before I hit the send button to submit the manuscript to my publisher.

Easiest thing about being a writer: Creating characters. I’m a pantster, and characters just appear when I need them to. It’s like they enter my imagination and tell me their story. All I have to do is listen and write it down.

Favorite snacks: Potato chips

Things that make you want to gag: Cotton candy

Something you’re really good at: Baking scones. I have two secrets to making fabulous scones.

Something you’re really bad at: Resisting eating too many of the scones I bake.

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid:

I wanted to be either a dancer or an artist. Later in life, I actually took art lessons, and now I’m taking Zumba classes, so I guess these dreams have come true on an amateurish level.

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do:

When I was a kid, I never dreamed of being a writer.

Last best thing you ate: Shrimp and Cheese Grits and Oysters Bienville at Felix Oyster Bar in New Orleans.

Last thing you regret eating: Pickled herring

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Scuba diving. Being 80 feet under water took some getting used to.

Something you chickened out of doing: Zip-lining. I’m terribly afraid of heights.

The nicest thing a reader said to you:

After my first mystery, Murder at the Arlington, was released, I received a two-page handwritten letter from a housekeeper who worked at the Arlington Hotel, where the book was set, telling me how wonderful it was.

The craziest thing a reader said to you:

I was selling my book, The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane: the Robert Porter Allen Story, at The Whooping Crane Festival in Texas. This book took me seven years to write, and it was a labor of love. All my proceeds were (are) donated to various whooping crane conservation groups. A woman picked it up, looked through it, and tossed it back on the table, complaining the print was too small.

Best piece of advice you received from another writer:

The best piece of writing advice I ever received was “just finish the book.”

Something you would tell a younger you about your writing:

It’s not only satisfying and enjoyable but also agonizing and worrisome. And don’t ever assume you know everything about writing because it’s a continuous learning process.

Recommendations for curing writer’s block:

Take a break, go for a walk, and let your mind clear. That’s when I get some of my best ideas. This also helps me figure out how to handle a difficult scene or what to write in the next chapter.

Things you do to avoid writing:

I don’t necessarily avoid writing, but if I need to get in the mood to write, I organize my desk, make sure my room is straightened up, and everything is in its place, so I’m not distracted by the annoying thing I have to do.

About Kathleen:

Kathleen Kaska writes the award-winning Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series, the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series, and the Mystery Trivia series, which includes The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book, published by Lyons Press. Her Holmes short story, “The Adventure at Old Basingstoke,” appears in Sherlock Holmes of BAKING Street, a Belanger Books anthology. She founded The Dogs in the Nighttime Sherlock Holmes Society, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars. Her latest Sydney Lockhart mystery, Murder at the Pontchartrain, winner of the PenCraft Award for best mystery series, is set in New Orleans at the Pontchartrain Hotel. Kathleen is the winner of the Amity Literary Award for her novel, Death Without Dignity, scheduled for release in 2027. A Texan at heart, she remains a Texan, even though she now lives in a small coastal town in the Pacific Northwest, where it’s cooler, and there is no traffic.

Let’s Be Social:

Website: http://www.kathleenkaska.com

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/www.kathleenkaska.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kathleenkaska

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/KKaskaAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathleenkaska/

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/search/authors?search=Kathleen%20Kaska

Book Links:

Anamcara Press: https://anamcara-press.com/product/murder-at-the-faust/

Amazon https://shorturl.at/v3bFQ

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-at-the-faust-kathleen-kaska/1149679615?ean=9781960462862