New guest writer: Katie L. Caroll, author of Elixir Bound

It is a great honor to welcome to Katie L. Caroll who is one of the 8 authors who accepted to write a guest post on my blog.
She will soon share her thoughts with the 10th grade American OIB class at Lycée International Nelson Mandela (on Skype).

Here are slides to prepare the students for the Skype Interview!

Katie l Caroll from Marie-Hélène Fasquel

And her post!

I often say that my journey as a writer began at a very sad time in my life, shortly after my 16-year-old sister, Kylene, unexpectedly passed away. Then I always amend that statement to say my journey as an author began when she passed away—my definition of writer being someone who writes and my definition of author being someone who writes for their career. The truth is I’ve always been a writer. Before I started school, my family and I wrote stories about a flying billy goat named Sam. In middle school, I began writing for the school newspaper, and I continued writing and editing for my school’s paper up through college.

I was a writer, but it wasn’t my intended career. That is until I was 19 and Kylene passed away. That was when I re-evaluated my life and decided that writing novels was a passion I had to pursue, and then it was only a matter of time before I figured out I wanted to write for teens and kids. As a reader, my wheelhouse has always been young adult literature, so it was a natural fit for my first novel, ELIXIR BOUND. It ended up being fantasy because, on the advice of my father, I wrote my first novel to give Kylene, who loved the Harry Potters books (though she only lived to read the first four), a fantasy adventure of her own.

My editing career began because I needed something to help pay the bills once I graduated from college. I landed a job as a puzzle magazine editor and worked there for eight years. After landing a publishing contract for ELIXIR BOUND, I started doing freelance work for them as a book editor. I’ve loved helping other authors bring new books into the world. I’ve cut back on my editing work since having kids and focus more on my writing now. I’m currently working on a second Elixir book called ELIXIR SAVED and pursuing publication on a young adult thriller called BLACK BUTTERFLY.

One of my favorite things about being an author is working with kids and teens on their writing. I’ve done a bunch of in-person school visits in Connecticut (my home state) in conjunction with a project I worked on called THE GREAT CONNECTICUT CAPER. Each chapter of this middle grade mystery was written by a different author and illustrated by a different illustrator, and all 24 contributors have close ties to Connecticut. Eric Price, who did a big project with the International school last year with his book UNVEILING THE WIZARDS’ SHROUD (a book I edited), contacted me earlier this year and said the school was looking for more authors to connect with. It seemed a natural fit for me to join the project. Talking about my work with students and having them talk about their own writings is very inspirational on both ends. For more about me and my work, you can check out my website at http://www.katielcarroll.com.

Thank you Katie for sharing your thoughts!