Kat Lopez
Author Kat Lopez may look friendly enough, but she's a maven of murder and mayhem... with an occasional romance to spice things up.
She tells us that murder, mystery, crime, suspense, and even paranormal stories provide her with a large and interesting canvas to explore. While her characters are not based on anyone in particular, they may have acquired some personality quirks from people she has known in life.
And whether in her books or in real life, Kat's got some pretty good stories.
"My first book, Between the Shades of Light and Dark, was never intended to be a book. It was a homework assignment when I was at FSU. Freshman English, Monday, 8 AM - who wouldn't think of murder? It really was just a paragraph, an answer to an assignment. I thought nothing more about it, that is, until my teacher pulled me aside and asked one question - what happens next?"
She wound up workshopping that book all through college. After all, she was a Creative Writing major. Nevertheless, she did not finish this budding book before graduation and stored it on a floppy disk (Google that, kids).
"I came across it while cleaning my home office one day and figured I should finish the book. It became a bucket list thing for me. I was coming up on 40 years old, so I wanted to have something I wrote printed before that milestone. I just wanted something I created to be put on my bookshelf next to my copies of Stephen King. I finished it a year early and got it published in 2013. I dedicated the book to my teacher-turned-friend."
Ten years and some change later, she is an indie author with eleven published releases with four more planned for the immediate future, has her own small indie publishing company (Wordsmith Publishing, LLC), and an ever-increasing backlog of story ideas to keep her busy for some time to come.
Since that first book, she has published several short stories and books, including The Shuller Series, which follows the unfortunate reality of her beloved character, Sheriff Martin Shuller. He's worth getting to know.