Kathleen Fair holds a master’s degree in medieval history and once worked in the ruins of Bishop Henry of Blois’s palace in Winchester, UK. It was Henry’s mother—a woman largely forgotten by history—who became the subject of her first novel, Princess to Prioress, after Kathleen Fair stumbled across letters written by and to her on the internet. Her fascination with overlooked women’s stories continues in Hell Hath No Fury and Whiskey Run, both sparked by serendipitous discoveries while researching early 20th-century America.

A former middle school history teacher for many years, Kathleen Fair brings her passion for bringing the past alive to young minds into her fiction. Her family roots run deep in Western Pennsylvania coal country—her maternal grandfather was a mining engineer who took her down into a coal mine when she was eleven, an experience that would echo decades later in her writing. She now lives near the beach in South Carolina—despite once declaring she’d never cross the Mason-Dixon line—where she writes, quilts, and has grudgingly admitted Southern winters have their charm.

Interview

How long have you been a writer?

In someways, my writing career started with writing local history articles for my town’s newspaper and doing forms for the state recording the history of homes and the families who built and lived in them. That started forty or so years ago. I then wrote a history of the school where I taught to celebrate its two-hundredth anniversary. But I remember writing stories as a child. I had a chalkboard on which I would draw characters or situations and make up a story about them. I was maybe twelve or thirteen at the time. Believing I could be a writer and not just a recorder of history began only about ten years ago.

Where do you get your story ideas?

Most of my story ideas have their roots in history. However, I am relying less on actual events and more on placing a story in a historical setting. Actually, I am collaborating with a fellow writer, and the idea for that came from a throwaway comment made at lunch. As I watched her put a large quantity of ketchup on her plate, I said, “Who are you, the ketchup queen?” The response was something to the effect of that would be a good book title. After much brainstorming, we have The Ketchup Queen partially written and totally plotted out. I am learning ideas can come from anywhere.

What is next?

Who knows? Working on my Substack focusing on women overlooked in history—perhaps that might be turned into a middle grades level book. Finish the Ketchup Queen and maybe explore our ideas for making it a series.

Thanks, Kathleen, for sharing your book with us!

Don’t miss the chance to read this book!