Friday's Guest features Karla Stover

What were you in your life before you became a writer? Did this influence your writing?

My friends say I was always writing; I still have a book report I did on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and a diary from high school. Apparently my friends and I got busted for rolling dice in the hall between classes. How innocent that sounds. However, my entire working career was at Merrill Lynch and my favorite job was salaried stock broker and complaint desk, a somewhat unusual combination. I had to write and turn in a daily report of every person I dealt with and what took place. I sure wish I had the reports now. The interactions would make a great nonfiction book like those cab drivers and waitresses write. The protagonist in my two murder mysteries, Murder on the Line and Murder: When One Isn’t Enough, works for a brokerage house. However, I have always loved history and when a friend of mine became editor of a local newspaper, she hired me to write a column on local history. That was a good thirty years ago and I’ve been writing ever since.

Are you genre specific or general? Why? I don't mean genres like romance, mystery, fantasy etc. There are many subgenres of the

The only way in which I am genre specific is that I am now focusing on historical times. Doing that gives me a lot of leeway and keeps me from getting bored.

Did your reading choices have anything to do with your choice of a genre or genres?

Here goes: Nancy Drew led to my murder mysteries and Anne of Green Gables led to my Tacoma-based book A Feather for a Fan which takes place in the 1870s. My non-fiction books, Tacoma Curiosities, Hidden History of Tacoma, and Let’s go Walk Abouts in Tacoma came from listening to my parents and grandparents’ tell stories about their lives here.

What's your latest release?

My latest release is Tacoma Curiosities: Geoduck Derbies, The Whistling Well of the North End, Alligators in Snake Lake and More—a bit of a mouthful. I finished it last February but October 2016 was its release date.

What are you working on now?

I’m currently working on Wynters Way, a historical fiction book. Because I hate inaccuracies in my own reading, I keep stopping to check things to guarantee their validity as to the period. That makes me a slow writer.

Where can we find you?

Books We love, Five Star Press, and Arcadia Press are my publishers, and Amazon has me. Some of my shorter things are on kindle.