The birth of Kate Oleander happened on a whim, a chance, and a forgotten dream. One day and several hours later the obsession took root deep in an elementary school teacher on a lazy summer afternoon. At the time the writer was nameless, and over the span of a week the pen name Kate Oleander became an alias to embrace and cherish. She breathes life into imaginary scenes, ideas, and characters bursting from a suppressed imagination. Many of the entities finding life on the pages of the novels have rattled around Kate’s mind for decades.
When not writing, Kate is a middle school teacher in the Midwest. She and her husband have four children and three dogs.
Kate’s favorite genres to write are paranormal romance and fantasy romance, but contemporary romances with suspense, danger, and a wicked antagonist are a close third to the others. All of her stories entertain the growth of a strong-willed female finding happiness and love at last while staying true to herself and fighting even when she thinks she has nothing left.
Sometimes the most beautiful things arise out of the ashes of destruction, and Kate Oleander enjoys lighting the match.
The person behind the writer is a wife, a mom to four amazing children and a handful of pooches. She is a middle school teacher and coach–the main reason for the pen name. The other reasons hover around insecurity, confidence, and fear of being an imposter. She is working on those other reasons, some days are better than others.
“To be a writer, all one needs to do is write.”
In the beginning…
As a child I was always a teller of tales and a manipulator of characters. Most were within the confines of my play spaces, but grew into the audiences of my peers. The more wild the tale and twisted the character’s fate, feedback fueled me to venture into even riskier scenarios. My friends and cousins never judged me, but loved to be part of the story.
Children don’t judge the things your characters do or scenes that play out on the storyteller’s tongue because they are wise enough to know that it is fiction. Pretend and make-believe. They understand it is made up and just like themselves it is fueled by imagination and triggered by things you see that as a child you do not understand. Children rewrite real life to understand, explain and often just to entertain and they do it through play.
But as you grow you learn that adults judge, and gradually peers learn to judge. Adults question how a “good girl” could write something so cruel and make characters do such “naughty” things. Parents become shocked and appalled because those things reflect on them and how they are raising their children. They worry that you are as damaged as your characters, and perhaps not with words, but with that disapproving or worried glint in their eye they silence a story.
It censors the story tellers.
It censored me.
I did not want to do something “wrong.” I did not want to be seen as the characters that came to life in my mind. Often they were bad and did horrible things. Things I knew were bad, but that was the intrigue. Those naughty things I would never choose to do for fear of punishment and judgement. I could explore such things in the safety of my words. In the end the characters learned or survived despite the evil that manipulated their choices and warped their senses. Or they didn’t and suffered the consequences.
No one died, no one was hurt and no one went to prison–in real life.
I censored myself and wrote the sweet things and the practical things that a good kid should write and not the perverse things that popped into my head, the “what if’s.” As frustrating as it was to lock away the creativity it became easy because life started to snowball. There was no time with classes and activities, jobs and coursework and eventually the responsibility of being a working wife and mother.
There was no place for writing in my life and I had tucked it away for so long that I didn’t even know I was missing it. I did know I was missing something though.
Being a teacher, well set in what and how I teach, careful management of time and with searching new ideas down to a science, after a few years I discovered I was bored and impatient with the hobbies I explored. I turned to reading something other than non-fiction books about classroom management, literary circles, number sense and love and logic. I discovered that romance novels fueled my soul, but not the mushy stuff that is sweet and adorable. I craved the toxic relationships and romance that survived the impossible by the end. I discovered I liked thrilling story lines with suspense and imminent danger to the characters. I liked self-discovery and the growth characters go through. I liked the characters that succeed despite down and out odds in their childhoods, poverty, abuse, bullies, neglect. I love their strength and their determination to live and go after what they wanted even when they nearly gave up. I love quippy banter and fights. Verbal duels and rage with words were as enjoyable as a physical pummeling.
I devoured anything free on Amazon and most things even when the plot was sketchy and the characters were extreme I finished because SOMEONE wrote it. Not all was good, but some struck a chord with me and the resounding thought in my mind was: I could be doing that! Even the less than quality pieces made me feel as if I could. So I did.
The things I write may not appeal to everyone and that is okay. People may not care for my sense of humor or the way I put words on paper and that is okay. I hope some people enjoy what I write, but if not that is okay too because I can’t ever see myself stopping. The band of crazies rolling around in my head have been awakened and they want out.
Who am I to stop them now?
Welcome to Kate Oleander Books 