Kathie - age 2 approximately

Don’t let the picture fool you. The little girl there doesn’t care much about pretty little slips, cute-as-a-button dresses, or warm yet stylish tights now that she’s all grown up. She’s far more interested in why that two-year-old self didn’t go for the doll wrapped in cellophane under the tree to her right. Was that child freaked out her new dolly couldn’t breath and was already dead? Or was it the mystery of what was hidden in the wrapped box, even if it was an undergarment? Is she wondering “What they hey? It’s Christmas, you’re supposed to give me stuff I want, don’t need!” or is she trying to figure out how that will fit the new doll?

Hi, I’m Kathie Leung. I’m a novelist, a writer, a burgeoning author with a deep, lustful, yearning to reach my full potential before the mark of time that pushes me into the second half  of  my life. I really need to stop dawdling.

Years ago, when my husband stopped me from working for someone else, saying he wasn’t sure that was good for my psyche to be working “for the man” and encouraged me to pursue my gift of writing; I was asked by someone what genre I write.

I was a blathering idiot. I just wrote. Stories, tales, fiction.

It’s taken me a while, but I have that pegged. I write mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and horror primarily. Some include ghostly apparitions. Some merely elude to them. They say that’s paranormal but if you’ve run in the circles I’ve run in, I just call it life on the weird and woolly side. While I’ve penned a parody based on Alanis Morissette’s Ironic, my calling is in the genre I most often read. I love authors such as Harlan Coben, Karin Slaughter, Lisa Unger, Lee Child, Jeff Abbott, Joe Konrath a.k.a. Jack Kilborn. But I also like literary fiction such as Amanda Eyre Ward, Dani Shapiro, and Leslie Ward. Writing literary fiction is a whole different thing, though. It digs deep, lays heavily on my heart. I admire those who are able to turn out masterful works of art over and over and have it fresh, powerful, engaging every time. Perhaps some day I will publish in that genre, but mark my words, it will most likely be only once.

I’m a traveler at heart and have been to most every state in the continental US with high hopes of making it north, traveling through Canada and on up into Alaska and the Yukon. I’m more of a cold weather person and while Hawaii and Mexico are nice, I don’t pine to go.

Speaking of traveling, which I try to write about on the Journals of Journeys blog, when I was about eight or nine I had a horrible desire to go explore the world. It came shortly after an issue of the National Geographic was delivered. It was about Ireland and Scotland. Sprawled out on the floor of the home you see in the picture above, I spread open the map of the world. My heart longed to go. But coupons and handmade clothes, were a big part of our lives back then and I knew that if I was going to go, I’d better figure out how to get there on my own. So I spent hours, days, weeks poring over that map. I went on marathon bike rides on my trusty yellow Schwinn with a flowered banana seat, timing myself and getting my parents to clock the routes I’d taken. Then, using a ruler, I carefully planned the route I would take via bike. The ocean wasn’t going to stop me. Once I arrived in Maine, I’d hop on a freight liner and ride my bike around and around and around the deck, serving as entertainment for the crew and thereby earning my passage, until arriving in Dublin. Or Glasgow. It would have to be a large ship so that I wouldn’t get sick.

Sure, my husband would love to retire and live off of the royalties that come from having a best seller published. He’s only slightly delusional, I love him nonetheless. Most of the time. The other times I just write him in as the poor, unsuspecting victim of murder and mayhem.

And while I know that might be a little far-fetched; there are lots of writers out there, some that never make it to the best seller list yet write just as good if not better than those who are on it, I still carry a yearning for the same, except that I want to be an international best seller. Just far enough that bookstores in Glasgow and Dublin will want me to come sign books in their pubs while buying me ale.

I guess that means I best get cracking and write.

Enjoy tripping the head fantastic (yeah, because some of these entries are a bit heady) as I publish various bits and pieces, most designed to help me iron out kinks, flesh out ideas, some may even be tantalizing back-stories to the book I’m working on at present. You never know. But this is a two way street, dear Reader, so I ask, instead of buying into my blog for these tidbits I toss out there, be so kind to feed me by way of leaving a comment now and again.

Happy reading to you, my friend.

Want to know more about me? Check out: ejourn.net/About The Author, the kathieleung.com landing page, and my copy writing page.