Q & A with Summer Festival Speaker Kathy Krevat and San Diego Writers Festival
SDWF: Tell us about The Gourmet Cat series
KK: The Gourmet Cat books are humorous murder mysteries featuring Colbie Summers, a single mom and owner of Meowio Batali, an organic cat food company in Sunnyside, California, a fictional town near San Diego.
In addition to well-plotted mysteries, the books are full of family, friends, and cute animals, along with a touch of romance.
SDWF: If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
KK: I would have told my idiotically-partying, twenty-something self to put down the vodka gimlets and to start writing. And I’d tell my thirty-something self to stop being a wimp and try harder to get my books published. And I’d tell my fifty-something self to get off social media and write. (That’s me talking to my yesterday-self.)
But the best advice is that writing is learnable, just like any other art form.
No one expects to become a fine artist or sculptor overnight, but too many believe that since they can write a letter or a Facebook post, they can write a novel. And when they attempt to write a novel and it’s not perfect, they give up, instead of putting in the work to learn.
SDWF: What writing resources (in San Diego, if appropriate) have been most helpful to you?
KK: I was one of those people who thought I could just sit down and write a novel in few months. After months of flailing around, I found the San Diego chapter of Romance Writers of America (RWASD). RWASD is full of writers—both published and yet-to-be published—who are dedicated to improving their craft and helping other writers.
They were starting a series of back-to-basics workshops focused on things like plot, POV, characterization, and more topics that I thought I knew, but totally didn’t. I took tons of notes, bought all of the recommended craft books and sometimes even read them.
For crime writers, I highly recommend Partners in Crime – the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime. Each month, they have speakers who discuss various topics of writing crime fiction, including professionals like police, CSI, district attorneys, and more.
And I can’t leave without talking about the CCA Writers’ Conference, https://ccawritersconference2020.weebly.com/, the only free writing conference for high school students in the US, and it’s right here in San Diego! I’ve volunteered for it since it began and the 2021 conference will be its tenth!
SDWF: How has storytelling changed your life?
KK: Storytelling has made me more brave in general. It takes guts to put your words out into the world, and then do it again, and again. To take that up a level (or one hundred), I took a stand-up comedy class last year and learned how to tell stories another way. After getting over the terror of open mics, performing stand-up actually became fun. I was invited to do a few showcases, which was very exciting for a newbie like me. The pandemic shut everything down and now I perform at Zoom events. All the laughs, with no commute and no cover charge!
SDWF: Is there a line from one of your books you’d be willing to share? (opening sentence(s) or something that gives the flavor of the piece?)
KK: I love working on opening lines!
For The Trouble With Murder: A chicken rang my doorbell.
For The Trouble With Truth: The rabbit was back. And he was eating my strawberries. Again.
For The Trouble with Talent: I gulped down the last of my coffee and dragged myself to the front door for the dreaded morning run, regretting my decision to get in better shape in time for the holidays. And that was before I got knee-capped by the smallest goat I’d ever seen outside of a YouTube video.
SDWF: Where can we find your blog/website or any other online links (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)?
KK: My website is kathykrevat.com and I’m on Twitter (if you don’t mind politics) and Facebook (where I generally refrain). You can find out about my comedy shows from my Facebook author page.
SDWF: Thank you, Kathy!
