About K.C. Maher, Fiction Writer and Reader

Novels requires readers: “The Best of Crimes,” like any fiction isn’t complete until readers invest their personal experience and imagination in the story. And, fiction writers need to read and keep reading. So while I have written novels to their end, and no longer feel they’re mine, exactly, I nonetheless feel they’re far from finished.

Personal History as Writer, Reader, and Mother

I grew up in the Chicago, married young, and had two children. But I always wrote and read fiction. Throughout my childhood and most of the year’s raising my children, I read more than I wrote. And, I loved watching and encouraging my son and daughter’s every discovery. As their imaginations grew, so did mine! But I made sure they napped for two hours a day so I could write. Some of my short stories were accepted in literary journals and were listed as honorable mentions in awards contests.

Writing Fiction and Reading It Are Counterparts

In 2007, with my children grown, I began writing more than reading, but both are necessary–fiction is a two-person creative endeavor! About the same time, I began writing serial fiction on a blog. For several years, this corrected my tendency to rewrite things to death. At some point after 2010, however, my natural writing style overcame what made sense for a blog post. And, without being aware of it, I developed a process that led me to write approximately 20 pages and winnow them down to one—before the rewriting begins.

The Best of Crimes, began as one of my serial fictions, and is the result of many years of rewriting. While it is completely a work of my imagination, it stems from people, places, and events I experienced while raising my children.