INTERVIEW: Mystery Author Kevin Kilgarriff

 

Kevin Kilgarriff

Warrington, PA

United States

 

Good morning, Kevin, and welcome to Vision and Verse, the site for Art and Authors, and those who love them.  What have you written? 

1.   Broken Pledges

2.   Always in Session - Ten Lessons for the Student of Life

 

What is your favorite genre to write? 

Mystery

 

Favorite food. 

Pizza

 

Tea or coffee? 

Coffee as a vice. Herbal Tea when I’m smart enough to be healthy

 

Pizza or ice cream? 

You’re really going to make me pick??? Ok, then…Pizza...I suppose. And then Ice Cream for dessert! 

 

Wine or beer or soda or what? 

I’m a true fan of beer. I love trying different selections from local breweries when I travel.

 

Where would you like to visit? 

Ireland. I saw a photo recently of the home that my Great Grandmother supposedly lived in back in 1901 before leaving to come to Philadelphia. I would love to see it for myself.

 

Favorite musical artist.  

Bruce Springsteen. His lyrics actually taught me a lot about how to convey emotion using writing. 

 

Do you listen to music when you write?  What? 

I actually try to keep things quiet when I’m writing. I tend to really get into a good song. It’s hard to write and play air guitar at the same time.

 

What makes you laugh? 

Almost anything! My mind will take anything and turn it into a comical situation. If you see me smirking to myself for no apparent reason, it’s a good bet I looked at something and created some off-the-wall scenario in my head.

 

Favorite work of art or sculpture. 

The Thinker by Rodin. I’m woefully unexposed to most of the great works of art in this world. But I grew up in Northeast Philly. So bus rides into Center City were normal for school trips. The Rodin Museum is right on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where there is a casting of The Thinker. It has always struck me as important. It makes you wonder. What is he thinking about? What is going through his mind? What kind of problem is he facing? It promotes thought, but does it without the viewer even realizing it. Not everyone is an art fan. So many people look at art and just think that it looks cool, maybe not even that. That’s not the case with The Thinker.

 

How old were you when you started writing? 

I didn’t start writing seriously until I was in my 20’s. It was right after my brother died. He was a serious writer, and it felt natural to take to writing as a way to cope with his loss. 

 

Do you plan out your book with outlines and notecards? Or just write? 

I definitely plan it out. Well, at first I start writing from the top of my head. This gives me an idea of whether or not I’m enjoying the story. Then I start planning based on what I’ve learned about the characters after the initial writing sessions. While coping with my brother’s death, I wrote a story about someone who found out that their brother had faked his own death. I wrote it out without planning a storyline. It turned into a book-length story, and it…well it was not very good! It was disjointed and didn’t flow well. Some of it didn’t even make sense in relation to the rest of the story. In the end, while not only helping me cope, it also taught me the importance of storyboarding. I need notecards laid out to make sure everything makes sense.

 

Describe your perfect evening. 

Summer. 85 degrees. Hanging out on the back deck. Sun is getting low in the sky. Filets, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes on the grill. Music coming through the speakers. Family and friends around. That’s all I need.

 

Where do you get your inspiration? 

Nowhere in particular. Sometimes ideas just hit me out of everyday situations. The inspiration for Broken Pledges came from getting together with some old fraternity brothers from college. For some reason my mind just thought, “what would have happened if there was a murder in our fraternity while we were in school?” There wasn’t…to be clear. But what if there were? From there, my mind just went from one “what if” to the next, and the story started writing itself.

 

What do you do when you get a writer's block? 

Take a break. Sometimes long breaks. Days. But if it goes on too long, I just start forcing myself to write something. Anything! I just need to get thoughts on paper. I’ll often just write out dialogue, as if I’m taking dictation from a scene playing out in my head. Then I’ll make them sound nice later and fill in the gaps.

 

Who is your favorite author? 

I’ve got a few, I suppose. All cliched probably. But with good reason. James Patterson’s “Alex Cross” series was a big inspiration for me. Dan Brown’s “Robert Langdon” novels all moved so quickly for me and taught me to keep it fast paced if you want to keep the reader’s attention. David Baldacci. Brad Meltzer. John Grisham. 

 

Best book you ever read. 

The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton. I could read this over and over. Ponyboy’s growth, while still holding onto his childhood innocence and dreams, has always resonated with me.

 

Last book you read.

Calico Joe, by John Grisham. Great book about baseball…on the surface. But in the end it’s really about relationships. Not your typical Grisham novel. But a very pleasant departure, nonetheless.

 

What would you do for a living if you weren’t a writer? 

Well, I’m doing it actually. I manage a Support team for a software company. Writing is my passion. In a perfect world, I’d be doing that full time. But since I didn’t really get serious about publishing anything until later in life, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. (yet?)

 

Who is the one person who has influenced your personal life the most and why? 

My wife, Chris. Had we never met, I can honestly say that I don’t think I’d have made it to where I am today. My life would have taken a completely different path without her. And I’m fairly certain that it would not have been a better path. 

 

If you could sit down and have a conversation with ONE person, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be and why?

My Mom. She passed away when I was twenty years old from Ovarian Cancer. I would have so much to tell her about what I’ve become and what her granddaughter is becoming. I’d have so many questions for her. I never really got to experience life with her as an adult. I have more than half a lifetime of conversations to catch up on.

 

What advice would you give someone who aspired to be a writer? 

To paraphrase Dory in “Finding Nemo”... just keep writing. Just keep writing. Keep the fingers moving and keep the ideas flowing. Hone your craft. Share your work. Submit it to places. Have confidence in it and don’t keep it to yourself wondering if it’s any good. And finally, do your research on the best ways to market it and start the process before anything is published. If people don’t know about your work, no matter how good it is, it’s not going to be read. Spreading the word takes work. 

 

Do you have some links for us to follow you?

 (social media links to your amazon, Facebook, whatever else you want publicized)

https://www.kevinkilgarriff.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKevinKilgarriff/

https://twitter.com/KevinKilgarriff

https://www.instagram.com/kevinkilgarriff/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19504483.Kevin_Kilgarriff

VISION AND VERSE DISCLAIMER

Note:

Vision and Verse does not store any personal information like email addresses, home addresses, etc. We do not give any information to third parties. And cookies? We eat cookies.