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Kate Kingsbury
Pseudonym: Rebecca Kent.
Pseudonym: Allison Kingsley.
I realized, some time ago, that you know nothing about me.
Not a good way to run a website. So here are the basic
facts, and I'll add to them as I get time.
I was born in England, shortly before the outbreak of WW II.
(Yes, I really was!) I spent the war years in London,
spending most of my time between school and air raid
shelters. When things got a little noisy outside the
shelters, and everyone was too scared to sing, I'd get up
and start telling a story, making it up as I went along.
Before long word got around, and I was asked to entertain on
a regular basis. Thus the storyteller was born.
It was many, many years, however before I actually saw my
stories in print. My first publishing effort was a letter to
the children's page of a British national newspaper. It
described how our cat would thrust one paw through the
letter box in our front door and bang the doorknocker with
the other paw. When we opened the door the cat walked in. It
was months before any of us realized why no one was at the
door when we answered it. Anyway, I was eight years old and
I got paid for the letter. My first sale!
The second came nearly fifty years later. (I'm a late
bloomer.) In between I enjoyed a short career on the stage
as one half of a sister act, until I emigrated to the United
States with my husband. That put pay to my stage career, but
I kept my hand in by playing piano and singing at a local
English-style pub every month on British Night. I worked as
a receptionist, accountant, office manager, executive
secretary and for a change of pace, a salad maker in a
restaurant. I actually worked with the first prototype
computer. It took up the entire room, with tapes almost as
big as me. The noise of all those wheels whirring around
was distracting. How far we've come in such a short time.
My son was born in 1968, and during the first few months of
his life I stayed home and renewed my interest in writing.
Then my husband decided to go into business for himself,
selling British Foods to the ex-patriots and many Americans
(all of whom had excellent taste, of course.) He sold, and I
did the accounts. We became partners and incorporated, but
the writing bug wouldn't leave me alone. The first
manuscript I had the nerve to submit was accepted by
Silhouette Books in 1987, and my new career began.
I wrote my first book on a typewriter. I often say that if
computers hadn't been invented, I would not be a writer
today. As it was, graduating to a computer changed my life.
Back then, comparatively few people had access to a chat
room. Those who did were usually savvy computer types,
business people and writers. With my thirty year marriage
breaking up, the chat rooms became salvation. I found
companionship, friendship and eventually love.
He lived on the east coast, I lived on the west. That was in
1993, when computer time was charged by the minute. When our
computer and phone bills added up to $1500 a month, we
decided it would be cheaper to get together. We met for the
first time at the airport in Portland, Oregon, and the next
day drove across the country to Philadelphia. I had to call
my sister and close friends every night to reassure them
that I wasn't with an axe murderer. A year later we were
married in Las Vegas on our way back to Oregon, where we've
lived happily ever since. Now, how's that for romance!
A few years ago we added to our happy home a cute little rat
terrier who thinks she's a Great Dane. All fifteen pounds of
her. She rules the household, nevertheless. A true member of
the family.
Books:
 The Clue is in the Pudding, November 2012
Herald of Death, November 2012
Mistletoe and Mayhem, November 2011
Herald of Death, November 2011
Decked with Folly, November 2010
Mistletoe and Mayhem, November 2010
Decked with Folly, November 2009
Ringing In Murder, November 2009
Ringing In Murder, November 2008
Shrouds of Holly, October 2008
Slay Bells, November 2007
Shrouds of Holly, November 2007
Slay Bells, November 2006
An Unmentionable Murder, August 2006
Wedding Rows, January 2006
No Clue At The Inn, November 2005
Fire When Ready, December 2004
Berried Alive, April 2004
Paint by Murder, September 2003
Dig Deep for Murder, December 2002
For Whom Death Tolls, February 2002
Death is in the Air, August 2001
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