Hello, my birth name is Kittie Louise. I use K.L. Franklin as my author's name. But I got tired of the Kittie jokes throughout my younger years. So I chose a different name about 30 - most people today call me Ro (for Rowan). My father was in the Navy during WWII. So I decided, since his story indicated that he loved me and never met me, I would use my birth name to honor him. I found incredibly old photos of him and my mom when they married. I never knew my birth father, but I discovered him by accident. I've been writing since I was a kid. I spent a lot of time alone, since my mom was working. There were just the two of us. Ultimately my mom remarried and produced two sisters. It wasn't easy to adjust to the new family. At the age of 18 I married, then discovered I was pregnant. My first, Steven was 5 months old, when I got pregnant again with KP. Then, unexpectedly I had my daughter, Laurie, in August two years later. Life got difficult after the three kids. Their dad and I divorced. My children are awesome today. With the three elementary school aged kids, I went to college in Portland and took a writing class. It is there that I learned how to write, kinda. Today there is just me with three kids and a lot of grandkids and great grandkids. After we left Portland, I worked for the State of Arizona as a legal assistant in Tucson until my retirement. (Did I mention that I'm not young - but I feel like I am!) I have published books in the past but not fiction. It was called Random Thoughts and that was what it consisted of... from poetry to life stories, etc. After that, it took me that long to seriously write a fiction novel. Yarma, her story, came years ago from that Portland college class assignment. I found that assignment in a folder I kept and decided I could tell her story in total. It was difficult to write this novel. It took me years to put the story together, but I'm glad I never quit. I love my characters in this book - Yarma and Quinn aren't the only ones. There are bad guys and great guys. Sacrifice and loss but, like my life, I weathered it all, as Yarma and Quinn have. Today writing is my life. I feel every good or bad moment each of my characters experience. I hope the reader does also. What a better way to stay young at heart than to go through the ups and downs of every character's hopes and fears. That is what writing means to me. Emotion and success in what you love regardless of anyone's experience. I guess you could call me passionate person. Feeling someone overcoming the worse only to make it better. That is basically what the characters are hoping for. Even the bad guys. >(I hope that this is what you're asking for - if not let me know what I wrote improperly. KL Franklin)
