Featured Interview With Kim Taylor Blakemore
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Denver, Colorado, but raised on the Monterey Peninsula on the Central Coast of California. After college and a short theatre career in Los Angeles, a long stint teaching orientation and mobility to blind adults in Denver, an 8 year stint back on he Peninsula, I now call Portland, Oregon home. And yes, I love the rain. As much as I loved the fog and the bay in Monterey. I consider both Monterey and Portland my home towns. You know – those places that pull at your, call to you when you’re away, and fill your soul when you’re there.
I love history and research, and spent many many hours in the Colorado History Museum. I wrote a novel, Cissy Funk, about the life of a girl during the Depression in Colorado. I was also fascinated and haunted by the story of the Sand Creek Massacre – and some day will write about it.
Monterey is not only one of the most beautiful places on earth, it is also John Steinbeck’s haunt. He is a treasure to residents, which is rather ironic, as he was driven from his home town of Salinas (the real east of Eden) after writing The Grapes of Wrath. I know the real location of his books, and once toyed with running a tour operation to point out each and every spot mentioned. Doc Rickett’s lab? I know how to crawl under the canneries and point it out. Flora’s from Sweet Thursday? Check? The Red Pony? A small valley to the west of Soledad, with sun fluttering on the California oaks and the fog crawling over the Santa Lucias.
Did I mention that I love New York City history? Let me walk you through the Lower Eastside.
But I digress from the questions…I have 2 dogs and 2 cats, all rescues, as my spouse is a veterinarian and that is the required form of adopting.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My parents were, and are, avid readers. When I was a child, my father would come home after grueling hours at the hospital where he was a radiologist and read aloud to my brothers and me. I remember the roll of his voice, how he could act out every character. And will never forget the long time it took him to read Lord of the Rings to us. I don’t need the movies: I have his voice. My mother was the mystery buff, and read so much she knew the murderer and why they did it within the first 20 pages. Yes, including Agatha Christie. At the movies, we’d stick our fingers in our ears, because she knew who and why and when and how within the first 10 minutes.
And then there is the memory of holding my mother’s hand as she walked me into the Monterey Public Library. Standing there. Looking up at the shelves that went on forever. Breathing in the smell of books and paper. I asked her, “Where do I start?” But before she could answer, I saw the AB shelf, and the very first topmost book and said, “I’ll begin there.”
I started writing many years ago. Of course, the short stories as a child. I was then enthralled with theatre and acting and tried to write (very bad) plays. Even into my adult years. But my first book that was published was written because I was bored. It was a snowy day, work cancelled, walking around the house and then I thought: I hated my time in L.A. The memories of it always had a bitter taste. Sit down and find the humor in it. And so I did. It was a small book, from a small publisher. But I was hooked. On words, on characters that never acted as I asked. On plot that went haywire.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Wow. Favorite authors. There are so many for so many different reasons. Steinbeck: for his love of not so loveable people. Hemingway: for the art of telling just enough that the reader engages in the story and fills their mind and heart into the blanks. Virginia Woolf: for her precise prose and how she can peel away the humanity of each character. Sarah Waters: the best dialogue I’ve ever read – power struggles over small picnic lunches and the ability to drop me into another time. Jeanette Winterson: language as sex (no, not erotica, just visceral language, words that fill the palate, ideas like a hand on my skin). Terry Pratchett: I hate fantasy. But his worlds and stories are like bites of life and laughter and crazy situations in an alternate world. If you don’t like fantasy but like old movies, then read, well, Moving Pictures. You’ll be hooked on Discworld.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Bowery Girl, just re-released, is set in the Lower Eastside of Manhattan in 1883. I think the blurb speaks for itself:
“NEW YORK, 1883: Gamblers and thieves, immigrants and street urchins, Do-Gooders and charity houses, impossible goals and impossible odds. The Bowery is a place where you own nothing but your dreams. And dreams are the only things that come cheap for pickpocket Mollie Flynn and prostitute Annabelle Lee.
Pleasure is fleeting – and often stolen. Nights at Lefty Malone’s saloon, sneaking into the Thalia Theatre. Then it’s back to their airless, windowless tenement room and the ongoing struggle to keep a roof over their heads and bread in their stomachs.
The Brooklyn Bridge is nearing completion, and things are changing in New York City. The two women fantasize of starting a new life across the East River. Nothing but a flight of fancy, perhaps, until wealthy Do-Gooder Emmeline DuPre, who has opened the Cherry Street Settlement House, steps into their lives with her books, typewriters, and promises of a way to earn a respectable living. Despite Mollie and Annabelle’s fascination with the woman and what she offers, is Emmeline helping or meddling?
Is it really possible to be anything other than a Bowery Girl? Mollie and Annabelle will have to decide exactly who they are, and what sort of women they want to be.”
It was tremendous fun to write and research. Particularly finding primary sources. I was fortunate enough to see the original Jacob Riis glass plates from his photography for “How the Other Half Lives”. And I was amazed at the sheer tenacity of the denizens of the Bowery – how to survive, particularly as a woman with no prospects and nothing but wits to keep food in your belly.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles
Kim Taylor Blakemore’s Website