7 Things to Know About Me

By Kay Kendall

Half of my family is from
Texas, the other from Kansas, and I once lived in Canada for 22 years with my Canadian
husband. We’ve been homesteaded happily in Texas since 1990, and he now calls
himself an American. That said, each of us has dual US-Canadian citizenship, as
does our son.

Some people divide the
world into two camps. I am a …

I’m a dog person. I’ve lived
with a few cats over the years, but I’m allergic to their fur. Dogs I can relate to. Cats, not so much, and besides, just thinking about them makes me
wheeze and sneeze. (My fervent love for rabbits is a whole other subject.)  

On campus I was riding my
bicycle down a path, barreling down a slight hill, when my brakes failed. I
couldn’t stop and careened onto a busy street. Cars came at me on my right, but
I whizzed by in time to avoid getting scrunched. This scared me almost to
death.

I wrote and illustrated my
own version of Clement Moore’s wonderful “Night Before Christmas” when I was seven
years old. After that I tried to rewrite Little
Women.

In the early 2000s, while shopping at a Whole Foods store, I
spotted a mug adorned with words from Henry David Thoreau. Aimed straight at my
heart, the words were, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live
the life you’ve imagined.” I bought that mug and used it for five more years while
I wrote and wrote and wrote some more. It took that long for me to acknowledge
that being a writer was my heart’s desire, and another year passed before I
could call myself a writer. Now I call myself an author, because my two mysteries are published. That is the best
part, being a published author.  

The most daring thing I’ve
done is to put myself out into the world as a writer. It takes guts to send
your baby/book out into the world, knowing that lots of people could sling mud at
you and say your book is the stupidest thing they’ve ever read. I’ve heard many
very famous authors say how depressed they get about bad reviews, so I know I’m
in good company. I figure it is well worth the risk. I can take the heat so I do
stay in the kitchen.

Forced to pick, I’d much
rather be famous. I would go further and choose to be famous for being an
author whose books people love to read. Why not rich? That’s easy. Many rich
people lead very unhappy lives. They grow mean and nasty and very, very
selfish. Enough said.