Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the three hundred and ninety-fifth, is of contemporary women’s novelist Holly Kerr. If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at author-spotlights.
Holly Kerr is not overly fond of writing bios of herself. She would rather create her characters, interesting, fun-loving, relatable characters that catch the readers’ attention and move the story forward at a good pace. As a compromise, she decided to pretend she was describing one of her characters and came up with a few things which define Holly Kerr.
She is Canadian.
This is usually not a pertinent fact about Holly, but due to the international flavour of Morgen’s blog, she thought it might be a fun fact. Holly is a Canadian in that she is nice and polite to all, and also finds herself apologizing for things which are not her fault, just like most good Canadians. It does not mean she plays hockey or eats poutine, however. In Holly’s opinion, French fries should be eaten with mayonnaise, not gravy, and she’s sorry if you don’t feel the same way!
As for hockey, Holly enjoys watching the sport, but she would rather watch baseball over hockey any day. In fact, she is a die-hard baseball fan; she has the ability to name the starting line-up of the Toronto Blue Jays during their 1992 World Series Championship season, she coaches her eleven- year old son’s baseball team, and is teaching her eight year-old daughter how to pitch.
Holly feels fortunate to have spent the first half of her life in small-town Ontario. She was raised on a farm, which gave her a love of animals, an appreciation for the outdoors and the ability to drive a tractor. It also helped her learn to drive during the long and snowy Canadian winters.
To her parents’ dismay, Holly followed her husband to Toronto, where they now reside. To clarify, Holly’s parents were dismayed about the move to the big city, not the husband!
Holly has a few atypical Canadian interests: on a recent vacation, she realized she loved scuba diving and snorkeling, and would like to pursue this new activity, albeit in a warmer climate. She also runs and is learning all about the challenges of trying to train for a marathon during the deep-freeze that is January in Toronto. Luckily, she also enjoys reading, movies, all things Star Wars and super hero related, which can be enjoyed indoors.
She is a mother.
This is a pertinent fact about Holly, since these days, being a mother seems to define who she is the most. She is Kaitie’s mom, and Sam’s mom, and Sarah’s mom. Holly’s children enjoy the fact she is an author, mainly because it means she is home during the day so they often come home for lunch, bringing many friends with them.
Holly is a typical mother who described her children as wonderful, amazing, thoughtful, talented and believes her three offspring basically radiate an all-round brilliance. She is very proud of them.
She is a writer.
This should undoubtedly take up the majority of the allotted space.
Holly Kerr is the author of the chick-lit novel, Unexpecting and the women’s contemporary novel, Coming Home. Her latest book, Absinthe Doesn’t Make the Heart Grow Fonder, is also women’s contemporary fiction, but Holly was surprised to discover there was a dark, Gone Girl like twist within the story.
For those of you curious about how Holly could be surprised about a book she herself wrote, an explanation would be that sometimes characters veer off of what was planned for them, saying and doing things that surprise even the author. It’s what makes writing fun.
Like a lot of authors, Holly has always wanted to be a writer. She’s penned stories about bunnies fleeing from car headlights, dying sisters, Russian attacks on public schools and subsequent resistance of the students. In later years, she focused her writing on women and their relationships, whether it was a woman’s comical obsession to have a baby and how it affects those in her life (Unexpecting) or how difficult it can be to like your sisters. (Coming Home)
Holly is a staunch supporter of independent authors. Unexpecting was self-published and although Coming Home was published by a small press, she has returned to self-publishing with her latest novel, Absinthe Doesn’t Make the Heart Grow Fonder. While she would enjoy the validation having her books being picked up by a traditional publisher, she gets a great deal of satisfaction from the control of being an indie author. Holly keeps discovering new and supportive communities of authors, and she hopes to use her website to cast a spotlight on other indie authors.
Holly also writes a series of erotic romance novels under the pen name Anna Ellis. She finds it an interesting challenge to keep the two sides of her separate.
Absinthe Doesn’t Make Your Heart Grow Fonder asks the question: How far would you go for a friend? It turns out the four characters in the story would do quite a lot for their friends. So would Holly Kerr.
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And now from the author herself: Continue reading →
Morgen 'with an E' Bailey 