Kelly Klepfer Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

A: I take care of two hedgehogs and two beagles as well as a husband and a smattering of grandchildren from time to time. Bred, born and raised in Iowa I am still here and I really love my little piece of heaven. My day job is taking x-rays and coding medical visits. Active in our church we do a whole lot of stuff, name it I’ve done it or my husband has. For chill time I love being with my family, cooking/baking, reading or bingeing way too late at night on Netflix or Hulu.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

A: I was a wee lass. My first book was at five years old. Lousy the Cat which was about our cat Lucy. In high school I was the annoying kid who loved writing projects. Early in my marriage my mom and I took a romance writing workshop and my first book was typed on a typewriter with carbon paper inserted between two pages. And was a spy novel set in Africa. None of this was a good thing. I did finish it and then it went where it should have gone. Into a trash can.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?

A: My touch with greatness happened several years ago when I wrote a winning Pastor of the Year essay that won my pastor and his wife a trip to Max Lucado’s church and a lunch with Max. I found the autographed slip of paper the other day when cleaning. However, the actual highlights are hearing things like, “I bought a copy of your book for my friend who was just diagnosed with cancer. Her husband is going to read it out loud to her during chemo.” That God would bless someone through something I write is pretty amazing.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release OUT OF THE FRYING PAN?

A: Out of the Frying Pan is a quirky cozy mystery romance hybrid. Detective Flynn shows up to a possible homicide at a retirement community to discover that the scene has been tampered with by two residents and a decrepit dog. Turns out the ladies who stumbled onto the scene now feel an ownership and obligation to discover who killed Leonard.

Here’s the official book blurb.

“When the chef of Sunset Paradise Retirement Village ends up dead, life for sisters Fern and Zula Hopkins is whipped into a froth. Their zany attempts to track down the killer land them in hot water with Detective Jared Flynn. Should he be concerned about their safety or the criminal’s?

But there are deadly ingredients none of them expect. Drugs. Extortion. International cartels. And worst of all…broken hearts–especially when the Hopkins sisters’ niece KC arrives on the scene.

Before the snooping pair gain any headway with the case, it becomes crystal clear that the sisters discover a mysterious secret that takes life from the frying pan and into the line of fire.”

Note: The blurb does not mention Fifi the wonder dog. Flower envy is missing as is Phillipe the suave newcomer. Nor does it do justice to the danger. The danger is real. Real real.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for OUT OF THE FRYING PAN?

A: I used to work in the non-profit world with a woman who literally had a Bachelor’s Degree in drama. Okay. It was theater, but drama is drama. She was hilarious and ran the retired senior volunteer program. One year she invited me to co-chaperone her annual Christmas fundraiser (okay it was basically just to ride along and pass out tickets at events) to Branson with several of her volunteers. That was probably the first time in my life I realized that fun younger people grew up into fun older people. We had a blast with the seventy-year-old travelers. One day after our fateful trip she ran across a volunteer named Zula. She yelled across the room that this was a great character name in a murder mystery, even mentioning a death at a retirement village. Years later I asked her if I could use that little bit of information to write a book with a friend. She gave her blessing and the rest is Out of the Frying Pan.

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?

A: I hope they fall in love with the characters. And that they laugh.

Q: What is your favorite scene/chapter from the book?

A: Fifi scenes are definite favorites. Who doesn’t love a tottery old dog? Zula is a kitchen dervish and some of her scenes are poetry in motion. Then there is the Detective Flynn scene where he is questioning residents during a potluck and the women in the crowd have called granddaughters and nieces to come on over because there’s a handsome, single detective hanging out. I might not have one favorite scene.

Q: What inspires you to write?

A: That’s a great question. Michelle Griep, my co-author, literally has to write every day or she goes stir-crazy. It’s an outlet and a huge passion. I’m more inspired to write because I’ve committed to something or have a great story I have to tell. I want to write to entertain. I know that’s not what I’m supposed to say. I should be more like Michelle. But she is one of a kind.

Q: How has being a published novelist differed from your expectations of the profession?

A: I am the last in a large group of critique partners to be published. One of my favorite anecdotes was when my co-author Michelle Griep and I were writing a lot of devotionals and selling them to the same magazine. One day, a year or so after her first book had published she called me. “Yeah. So I got my royalty check on my book that took thousands of hours and a check for the teen devotional that took me 3 hours. Guess which one was more?” I never had the delusion I’d get rich. Or even get paid minimum wage. However, it is pretty stinking cool to have someone gush over my book. And not so cool when someone doesn’t get it, or looks sideways at me and says, “Yeah, I’ll write a book someday. Boy do I have stories.”

Q: What advice or tips do you have for writers who are just getting started?

A: Be teachable. Seriously. You may have talent but that’s 7% of the equation. The rest is hard, hard, humiliating work and connections. Connections are so important. If you are not teachable you burn bridges. And read. Read books you like and figure out why you like them and dissect them for how they pull that off. Read books outside of your genre and be able to communicate why you don’t care for the genre or certain writers or titles, because that’s what you will want to avoid in your own writing.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?

A: I am slowly starting on the outline for INTO THE FIRE. Michelle has a multibook contract that is going to eat up her writing time for awhile. I should be done just about when she’s ready to revisit the Hopkins ladies.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?

A: I love hanging out with my adult children. Seriously, these kid grown-ups are awesome human beings. I can’t take much credit because God literally did it all. And He blessed me with them, too. My daughters have kids, two of which are one year olds. So there are so many benefits to being with my kids. I also bake and cook and get crafty now and again and have a pre-bedtime ritual of Netflix or Hulu bingeing with my husband, beagles and hedgehogs.