KATHRYN R. BIEL: AUTHOR

I've spent the last few weeks re-doing my logo and all my signs, business cards, social media, etc. to better represent my brand. It falls in line with the website redesign I did this past winter (isn't it pretty?). Anyway, I've been really happy with it all and sometimes catch myself staring longingly at my headers. If you haven't seen the new look, here it is: So pretty, right? And tonight, after my gazing was complete, I decided to google myself. It's something I do to make sure no one's talking smack, find reviews where people completely bash me, get angry at all the a-holes who are offering pirated copies of my books, and basically do anything I can to procrastinate with actual writing. I found a pretty recent hit for my name, so I clicked. It had my name and then following KATHRYN R BIEL AUTHOR it said BAD CAKE DECORATING. You can see it here . And there was a picture!!! They stole it from this blog post  in which I talk about all the cakes I...

Today is March 2nd, which for anyone with a school-aged child, we know is Dr. Seuss's birthday. I dare anyone who is a book lover to deny some love of early literacy as a result of Dr. Seuss. We, of course, had books in the house, and my grandfather belonged a book of the month club where he received pretty much the whole collection of Dr. Seuss and related books. I can still picture them on the bottom of the built-in bookcase in the TV room (FYI and totally unrelated, my grandparent's house is now a restaurant, and you can eat in that room with those bookcases still there). What a great gift for all the grandchildren (there were 24 of us, so it was probably a wise investment)! As a child, my personal favorite Dr. Seuss stories were The Sneetches and What Was I Scared Of?  They were both part of the collection, Sneetches and Other Stories , which overall, is fantastic. My other favorite was The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins . I don't know why I liked ...

I think I may be getting old. Don't get me wrong, it beats the alternative but ... While watching pro-sports, like the NFL, I realized that any players my age are "super old" and many are retiring. It's odd to think that Peyton Manning and I would have graduated high school together. I'm technically 3 months older, but we don't need to focus on that. Pretty soon, there won't be anyone "my age" left in professional sports. And then, spilling across my Facebook feed is the sad news that Dolores O'Riordan from The Cranberries died suddenly. She was 46. I remember when The Cranberries burst onto the scene. I was in high school. It never occurred to me that the lead singer was relatively close in age to me, about the same age as my oldest brother. That news, along with the news of her death, is hard to process. There are days when I feel old beyond my years. There are days when I simply cannot even entertain the fact that I'm middle-ag...

I'm lucky that in my (almost) 42 years on this planet, I can look back and see pivotal moments that changed the direction and shape of my life. In fact, without even realizing it, I've often blogged about them. There's the one when a sick day spent at my grandmother's house and a piece of "junk" mail led me to the medical field and working with kids. You can read about that one here . Then there was the time I was getting allergy shots and my next door neighbor's step-mother said the words that gave me direction in my career. That story, in addition to directing my career, also gave me inspiration for the book of which I'm most proud, Live for This . That book even won an award this year. You can read that story here . And how about that time that the use of a standard comma instead of the oxford comma led me to meet my husband? That's a funny one, although not really, because the PT/Speech therapy cap is STILL limited by that damn lack of co...

When I was in college, at the apex of the grunge/alternative music movement, I grew to like Stone Temple Pilots. They were (and still are) my favorite of the 90s bands. While at work one day (I was a waitress at an Applebees), the bartender, my friend Jeff, mentioned how he'd gone to the STP show the night before at UMass. I was terribly envious that Jeff had been to see them live. Jeff didn't realize I was a fan, and if he'd known, he said he would have brought me. Jeff went onto describe the opening number, STP's cover of "Dancing Days" and how Scott Weiland sang it sitting on a couch wearing an afro wig. It was well known that Scott Weiland was a heroin addict and was most likely losing that battle. This was early 1997. Neither Jeff nor I thought Scott Weiland would live to see another tour cycle, and that neither of us would see him perform live again. We were only half right. June 26, 1997, while driving home from our apartment, after a night of drink...

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, as one does on a Saturday morning, sipping my coffee, when I came across an article (from a radio station) about how "Motherhood is less and less appealing to Jennifer Lawrence" or J-Law as apparently we're supposed to call her. Here's my advice. Don't do it. I am the mother of two. I love my kids. They are without a doubt the best things in my life. And I ABSOLUTELY wanted to be a mother. My whole career was literally planned around it. But, man, is it hard. Like, hard . There are days (perhaps one or two this week) when I want to give up. When I want to run and hide. And my kids are older (13 and 10). We're not in the screaming all night, potty training, "I do it myself" phase. My kids are relatively self-sufficient human beings. In fact, the 13 year-old made the coffee and delivered it to me in my room, complete with a biscotti (side note: I highly recommend teaching your kids how to make coffee). ...

I'm tired and I'd rather just vlog this than type it all about but the bags under my eyes are horrendous due to lack of sleep. So, I apologize in advance for the disjointed, rambling nature of this post. Consider this some true blather, more a collection of my thoughts. August is over. Holy crap, where did it go? Summer, come back. Please.  I had 3 days of work this week. It sort of sucked especially since my kids were off. My parents were super awesome and took the kids, but I missed them. I liked being at home this summer. I'm having difficulty watching the news out of Houston. It makes me anxious and panicky. It doesn't mean I don't feel terrible about what people are doing down there, and I'll be doing my bit (besides the praying I've already been doing) to help. But I don't want to see it. I'm about to launch my 10th book. I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that I've written 10 books (9 novels and a novella). Tha...