Kathleen Delaney

Kathleen Delaney grew up in Glendale, California when it was a small town, or at least a small city. Streets held pick up baseball games as well as cars, kids rode their bikes everywhere, and car pools had yet to be invented.

Marriage moved her to other places in southern California, Costa Mesa, La Habra Heights, Cypress and Chino. Each place grew tract houses and shopping malls, and rapidly filled up with young families and cars. Lots of cars.

Children filled her own house, five of them, along with dogs, cats, ice skates, footballs, small trucks, jacks, crayons, friends of children and, soon, calves, pigs and rabbits.. Kathleen’s first published story was about the adventures, and mis-adventures, of her children and 4H. Horses also appeared and the next few years were taken up raising and showing them, first at local shows with the entire neighborhood participating, then at Arabian shows all over the country.

After a few years, Kathleen obtained her California real estate brokers license, and moved her youngest daughter, her mother and father, three dogs, four cats, and six horses to Paso Robles, CA where she remained for twenty three years.

Books had always been one of the most important things in her life. She still remembers, at age five, getting her first library card. Naturally, authors were special people, a breed apart, not to be emulated by lowly beings such as her. Only, as she got older and read more, she began to question that belief. Could she also - - -? As it turned out, she could. After a lot of hours surrounded by torn up pages from her legal pad, even more in front of the computer screen, (she became very familiar with the delete button) and a roomful of rejection slips, she sold her first article to Family Fun, “Blue Ribbon Blues”. Soon after, her first novel, Dying For A Change, was named a finalist in the St. Martin’s Malice Domestic contest, and was accepted for publication by Publish America. The third book in the Ellen McKenzie series will be out in July, the fourth is almost finished, and there are more in the pipeline. There have been several short stories, one of which, “The Trip” will appear in central coast anthology due about the same time as Dessert.

Kathleen has recently retired from real estate to pursue writing full time. Her long time love of small towns sent her looking through the Carolina’s for a new place to settle. Gaffney. Limestone College, a delightful historic district, and great library immediately drew her in. She lives in a wonderful 100 year old house, with a wrap around front porch, where she and her dogs can wile away a summer afternoon, and a big office, lined with bookcases, where she can spend her days writing. And, as always, reading.