Kellie VanHorn Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
A. I live in west Michigan with my husband and four kids (ages 13, 11, 9, and 2). Two are in regular school and one is homeschooled, so I spend most of my time teaching, packing lunches, driving kids places, and cleaning up Cheerios off the floor. But in my spare time, I love vanishing into my imagination to write. I also enjoy gardening, camping, and baking. Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, I worked as a research scientist in a molecular genetics lab and I earned a master’s degree in nautical archaeology. As you can probably tell, I love to learn!

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
A. As a kid, I loved both reading and writing, but the idea never occurred to me that I could actually become an author until after I was in graduate school. I put writing off for several more years, but when my kids were young, I realized how much I missed that part of who God made me to be. Slipping into my own imaginary worlds became my break from the stress of being a stay-at-home mom, and after placing in a local writing contest, I gained the courage I needed to pursue writing professionally.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?
A. One of the biggest motivators for me has been entering writing contests. Once my entries started to final and win, I knew I’d learned the craft well enough to have a shot at being published one day. When my manuscript won the Daphne du Maurier award for inspirational romantic suspense, one of the judges, an editor with Love Inspired Suspense, requested to see the full. I had to make some major revisions to get the manuscript to the right length to meet their series requirements, but I decided to go for it. All my work paid off when I got “the call” a month after submitting!

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release Fatal Flashback?
A: Fatal Flashback is my debut with Love Inspired Suspense, and I’m so thrilled to be able to share this story with readers. It’s about an undercover FBI agent, Ashley Thompson, who winds up in the Rio Grande in Texas with no memory as to how she got there. Park ranger Logan Everett finds her and together they work to track down the drug cartel leader after Ashley.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for Fatal Flashback?
A: Years ago, when my husband and I were in graduate school in Texas, we took a spring break camping trip to Big Bend National Park. It was our first camping trip together and we roughed it at a campground near the Rio Grande with no flushing toilets or running water. The rugged, beautiful terrain left such an impression on me, it was a natural choice for the setting of my first novel. Ashley and Logan appeared one day in the park in my mind, and the rest of the story slowly fell into place from there.

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?
A: For much of this story, Ashley struggles with her faith in God because of bad things that have happened in her life, but she also recognizes how much she misses having a close relationship with her heavenly Father. I hope readers can relate both to her honest struggle as she walks through a personal desert and her need to quench her spiritual thirst through Jesus Christ.

Q: What inspires you to write?
A. Writing is my happy place, where my imagination can roam free and I can explore new worlds and pretend to be somebody else for a while. I also love the chance to exercise my mind and use my talents in a way my day-to-day routines don’t normally allow. When I sit down in front of my laptop or with a notebook, I ask God to help me “write by faith,” trusting Him to provide ideas and words to get the stories from my head and onto paper.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?
A. I’m currently writing what I hope will be my second Love Inspired Suspense. I wrote most of the first draft during November as part of National Novel Writing Month, and I hope to send a revised version to my editor early next year. This one is a reunion romance set in a small town, and so far I love seeing the bond unfold between my hero and heroine as they face danger together.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?
A. One of the tough things about Michigan is the long, dark, cold winter, so I love to take every advantage of summer while we have it. I enjoy gardening with my kids, picking and canning fruit, and lots of baking. Ever since that first camping trip to Big Bend, my husband and I love camping and being outside. We’ve taken the family cross-country on more than one occasion, to Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and the Dakotas. Nearly every summer you’ll find us in a tent, not a camper or RV, with our overstuffed minivan parked close at hand.