Rose Marie Kinder, who writes under the pen name of R.M. Kinder, has used her real-life romance with a serial killer to provide the story in her spine-chilling debut novel, An Absolute Gentleman, coming out in October 2007. The book is receiving advance rave reviews from critics. She won the 2005 University of Michigan prize for a collection of short stories titled A Near-Perfect Gift. Another of her short story collections, Sweet Angel Band, was awarded the Willa Cather Award in 1991.

Rose Marie is one of a dozen featured authors scheduled to attend the upcoming event, Rare Conversations. We asked her a series of questions about her life as an author and her upcoming projects. Here are her responses:

How did you get started writing? How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since childhood, but the serious beginning was when I returned to college, intending to become a teacher. That was at the University of Arizona, Tucson. My first instructor, Ruth Gardner, steered me into creative writing, and I stayed on that path. It’s seductive, anyhow, and the writing community there was so supportive, so good, that every other possibility paled. My family was appalled. A teaching career was highly respected but creative writing? What did that even mean? My mother believed I should keep a decent eight-to-five job and write stories on my lunch hour.

Where are you from and did that influence the kind of writing you do?
I’m from Southeast Missouri, and my fondness for that region is pretty evident from my fiction and from other interviews. Most people, surely, are deeply affected by the landscape of their childhood—geographical and emotional (and dreamscape), and I’m no different. But I lived in the desert southwest for a long time, and I’m influenced by that region, too. It’s open, clean, a mélange of cultures, and puts the self against a huge backdrop. It’s invigorating but also humbling. In the Bootheel, every family is core, not on the move, and what happened in the past will meet you around the corner. The desert is freer. To take another tack here, I’ve wished that I could capture a land and time as Willa Cather did in My Antonia. Her love for Nebraska and the people in that era is the underpinning of the book and makes this reader feel that country is my country. I’d like to do that.  Southeast Missouri is my favorite land, and is the dominant setting in my short stories, but my latest work is urban, and more focused on a community than any region—a music community, in one case.

For the aspiring writers out there, what is your writing habit? Do you have a set schedule or is it purely when inspiration strikes? Describe your writing environment.
Mornings are my best time, so that’s when I usually write, rarely over three hours. I believe that the unconscious mind works continually on the problems we consciously present it, and to be available regularly is just common sense. It’s a little like learning to remember dreams or to change them. Some stories, though, come along better late in the day, perhaps because they’re darker or slower. Jeremy an Ellery Queen story, was written at one sitting about 2:00 am and needed no revision. I’m opportunistic, too, though—snatching what blocks of time I can. That’s very common, for women writers especially. A favorite example of that is the poet mother in Nada Petrushevskaya’s The Time: Night. She leaves her daughter scraps of paper with fragment thoughts and poems. While immersed in her life, the reader is aware that all this force ended in a box of scrap paper on the kitchen table. It’s a legacy of her talent and vision and her lack of time to fulfill either. 

As for my writing environment, it’s a pleasant space (though that hasn’t always been the case). My home is a two story house built in the 1870s, with an old cistern in the back yard that we recently discovered and hope to restore. My study has cream wainscoting, burgundy print wallpaper, and three huge bookcases (handmade by a local, wonderful carpenter), old trunks, a nice window, loveseat, chair. My desk is a rectangular oak table I bought in the 70s—it was being used to hold plants on a sun porch during the winter. It has no drawers. It’s solid and a perfect size for my computer, a lamp, a printer and small stacks of papers. It’s rarely completely neat, but always welcoming. I like high ceilings, much light and quiet. A “room of one’s own is nice,” but as we all know, not absolutely necessary. I’ve written in an all-night restaurant, a bus. I keep a small notebook with me all the time and jot down ideas whenever they strike me.

What advice would you offer an aspiring writer?
I’m still an aspiring writer, too. My advice to others is what I try to follow: read the best writers, even if they’re not in your chosen genre; also read the writers you admire; read for love of language as much as for love of story; write the stories you want to write; listen for the voice of the story—try out voices, but don’t be afraid to change (Ken Kesey’s first version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was in third person); work to develop the skills you believe are your weakest; have faith in your writing; submit it when you believe you can’t make it better, at least not now; listen to criticism from good writers or good readers, but don’t let them ruin the story—trust your instincts. If talking about your writing weakens your thrust, don’t say a word about it until it’s done. Don’t stop believing in yourself and don’t stop writing.

How did you hook up with your publisher?
Through the talents of my agent, Mollie Glick of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. She’s tremendously insightful, professional, bright and patient. She had faith in An Absolute Gentleman even when mine was waning. She put me in direct contact with Maris Kreizman (then an editor at Counterpoint), guided me through revisions, and stayed current with the publication process, even as Counterpoint changed ownership (purchased by Shoemaker and Hoard). My current editor is Roxanna Aliaga.  I had heard that publishing is tight teamwork—writer, agent, editor, publisher—and now I know exactly what that means.

What are you currently working on?
Two novels, one a fantasy, though realism is probably my strength. I’m fascinated with witches, and a particular witch has thoroughly engaged me. The other novel in process is a psychological study of a master game-player—I guess that’s a form of fantasy, too, isn’t it?  And I’m completing a third short story collection. It’s shy at least one story.

What are your future plans?
Professionally, to promote An Absolute Gentleman, to find publishers for my other books, to continue growing as a writer, and to promote Missouri writers. Personally, to spend extended time with my family and to travel a great deal. I envy people who visit the world. I’d like to study languages a bit more—to read and speak German well and to read French at a basic level. Perhaps learn a little Russian.  

What is your greatest accomplishment?
This is a very difficult question to answer because doing so goes against my upbringing. It’s always been taboo to feel I’ve accomplished anything, because nothing is singly done. There’s always a helper in the wings, or a lucky break, or an ancestor—something not essentially self. And then there’s the arena—personal, public, professional: mother, daughter, friend, writer, editor, teacher, musician. Acknowledging that I wasn’t alone in the following, I would say turning Pleiades from a student in-house publication to a national one and shaping the creative writing program at UCM were two of my most rewarding efforts. I have wonderful daughters. I quit smoking. I learned that fishing is a peaceful activity, not beneath my dignity. I haven’t been a victim. And so on.

What is your favorite thing about your job?
Again, limiting my answer to one thing is almost impossible. A favorite part of writing is when a piece takes off, and I’m following it more than writing it, surprised, maybe distraught, but aware that this is right. Very, very rarely is that feeling wrong. Another favorite writing moment is when I realize revision is possible. There is another way! Buzz Poverman told me years ago that my writing would click when I learned to revise. He was right, but oh, what a hard, long lesson. A favorite aspect of all my jobs—writing, editing, teaching—is reading. That’s a sweet requirement, to read good literature, to lose myself in a rich voice. It’s like cheating on the job. Sometimes I write authors to tell them how I feel about their work. I always intended to write John Fowles about The French Lieutenant’s Woman, because that book led me to make a difficult but crucial personal decision. I recently wrote Madison Smartt Bell, to thank him for his support of my work when he doesn’t even know me, but also to tell him how grateful I was, when reading Save Me, Joe Louis, that Macrae didn’t die. I’ve been reading his books for a long time and am utterly amazed at his powers of description. I wonder what it’s like seeing the world through his eyes. I felt similarly about William Gass’s In the Heart of the Heart of the Country years ago, with Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible recently. I can’t possibly name all the writers who stun me with their talent. So, reading is a favorite part of my job and my life. One more comment: When I was nearing the end of Toni Morrison’s Sula, I thought she can’t pull this off. There’s no way to bring all this together. Then I read the last few sentences, and cried. The ending was perfect. Maybe other readers saw it coming. I didn’t.

Do you have any pets and, if so, do they make it into any of your books? What about family and friends?
Pets. We have three dogs, Speeds, Lollygag, and Lucky, and two cats (used to have three), Zeno and Twitch. We’re also feeding a stray, wooing it to our touch. But no pet or person is totally portrayed in any of my work—each is a composite. Every character changes from my first concept—a trait pops up that changes my attitude about them and alters their direction. Now, people often think they’re in my work, and that has caused a few interesting, and sometimes awkward, moments. My mother is convinced every older woman in my work is her. She made me promise not to give a copy of my first story collection, Sweet Angel Band, to our hometown library, until after she dies.  Back to pets: Brute was a neighbor’s dog, abused terribly. A story based on him won Zone 3’s 2006 Fiction Award. Beggar is a new mutt in a new work. I named him Faust but he wouldn’t have it (nor Mephistopheles). And others, I love them all.

One interest that did pervade this new book is the natural world, the animal kingdom specifically. My interest found an outlet in Arthur Blume, but his observations have his unique twist. He’s trying to understand his own crazed world and that limits what he sees and how he interprets. That’s true of all of us, I suppose.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would be slow to anger.

What do you want everyone to take away from your new/latest book?
On one level, a feeling of satisfaction—that the book lived up to its promise and was a good read. On another, an understanding that one reason we’re surprised at the evil among us is that we’re human, and we’re drawn to understand other humans. Our first nature is sympathy. Evil has always surprised us, even when we’re expecting it.

For more information on Rare Conversations, please visit the Johnson County Library Foundation Web site.