KATHRYN R. BIEL: AUTHOR

When I came up with the idea to write a novel, I had a thought in my head.  The "what if this happened ..." type thing (that exact idea would be a spoiler, so I don't want to go into too much detail).  Then I needed characters and settings.  I decided to go with the advice of "write what you know" so the character of Maggie is very loosely based on me.  The setting of Boston is from my own experience there.  Trying to figure out how Maggie lived and moved about the city, I pictured back to my own college days spent in Allston-Brighton and Boston. One of the things that most helped me go back to that time was listening to music.  As luck would have it, I had just gotten an ipod for my birthday and I had uploaded from my collection of CDs from the mid to late 1990s.  I belonged to BMG music club (for those of you who don't remember this, it was a club where you got 13 CDs for $0.01, and then had to buy or return CDs every month), so I had quite a few. ...

With the school year wrapping up, some reflection is expected.   Tonight's discussion was about teachers.  Despite my son's unique educational needs, he's been very fortunate to have excellent teachers so far.  We know that is not always the case, and were discussing how lucky he has been.  His educational course has not been what we initially wanted, but it has allowed him to have access to phenomenal teachers in two different schools that have been the best fit for him. This is a story of teacher accountability.  The whole idea of teacher accountability is not a bad one.  However, the execution of it in New York State this year has sorely missed the mark, but that is another topic for another day.  Teachers wield a lot of power.  They can make or break a year for a child.  They can make or break a child.  I was educated in the Catholic Schools of the Albany Diocese.  I don't know if it is still the case, but when I was in ...

Up here in the Northeast, the Biel household, like most others, are counting down the last days of school.  Because I work in the schools as well, I'm counting down just as much as the kids are, maybe even more.  My kids have nine days left of school (and some are not even full days).  I have about seven work days left (holy crap, how am I going to get everything done in seven days?!?).  I'm not sure who is looking forwards to summer vacation more. On the other hand, 11 weeks of unstructured time is very daunting.  Kids get bored, they fight.  They terrorize each other and trash the house.  But the summer is when I have more time.  This summer, I'm going in with a plan.  I'm pretty sure it will last about 2 weeks before it is totally abandoned, but here goes: Chores.  Every day, something will get done.  I'm working with each kid on a list of chores that they will do.  Some are daily.  Some are every other day, and s...

Taking a break from pushing my book (although it is still for sale) to talk about a family issue.  As I have disclosed in the past, my son has Attention Deficit Disorder (without Hyperactivity).  This is not an excuse for his behavior.  He is a very, very bright young man, but he simply cannot stay focused.  He twitches and fidgets, he stares off into space.  He loses track of what he is doing midway through the task. Part of his difficulty is that he processes information slowly.  In fact, I think his brain is actually working in overdrive when he receives information.  He's considering it, studying it, and developing theories about it.  A great example is one his Kindergarten teacher gave me.  She is one of the best teachers ever, and she really understood how he worked, which is why she was such an efficient teacher for him.  They were going around the room doing letter sounds.  This was in the first part of the year, but Jake ...

In the artful world of Amish quilting, there is what is known as the Humility Block.  Myth says that it is a mistake, purposefully placed in the quilt to remind the quilter that only God is perfect, and to attempt a perfect quilt is exhibits too much pride. This is my humility block. With exuberance (and perhaps with a bit of pride), I published my novel, Good Intentions , via Nook and Kindle last week.  Despite having read the manuscript (and read it, and re-read it), and having other people read it, apparently some typos/errors have gotten though.  It seems the majority of them are the kind that your eye skims over, because your brain knows what is being said.  For example, there was the word 'of' when it should have been 'on.' So, on the one hand, I'm thrilled that Good Intentions  is slowly but surely selling (and THANK YOU!!).  But on the other hand, I'm a little bit mortified that there are this many errors.  The great thing about the dig...

If I had a nickle for everytime I've heard that one this week... I guess I surprised a lot of people with my sudden "coming out" as a writer.  I still don't know that I would consider myself a writer, yet.  I feel I'm more a person who writes.  Just like I identify myself as a person who dances, but not a dancer.  I guess I feel that those artistic talents, writing and dancing, are crafts that are mastered and perfected.  I dabble in both as enjoyment and recreation, but do not feel that I have any sort of mastery. Anyway, a lot of people have asked me when did I write Good Intentions.  I finished it two summers ago, but now, I can't remember when exactly I started it.  I think sometime the winter before.  I wrote a little, and then let it go until the summer, when I was able to bang the rest of it out.  Unfortunately for and unbeknownst to me, the end of the summer is when the publishing world goes on vacation, so the first 20 or 30 agen...