And Now - a word from the...um...brains behind this operation!
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Kate, and I've been a Trixie fan since 1984, when my best friend introduced me to the series in the sixth grade. I, too, suffered through the heartbreak about a certain perfect titian- haired detective and longed for something more - and I got it the moment I picked up my first Trixie, #3 The Gatehouse Mystery. Ordinarily I'm one of those folks who has to begin at the beginning, but that was first book of the series that my school library had. There was something about Trixie that 'spoke' to me. I, too, lived far from town, and while it wasn't exactly a farm, you couldn't tell that by looking at it! I learned to drive a tractor before I learned to drive a car (and my grandfather never quite got over the 'fence incident'), and every summer I would cease to exist for the people I usually saw during the school year. Unlike Trixie, I was an only child and there was no convenient mansion on the hill for some lovely neighbors to move into!
I
spent my first 18 years in Delaware, then went to Coral Gables,
Florida to study at University of Miami. I was an English major who
decided not to go into teaching and I'm still trying to decide what I
really want to be when I grow up. I also spent a year in a small
Maine town called Damariscotta, so you can see that I tend to go to
extremes - I've done summer in Florida and winter in Maine, which is
a little backwards when you really think about it. Now I'm a grown-up
with a wonderful husband who, if he doesn't quite understand my
Trixie obsession, at least tolerates being told that he can't put any
other books on the bookshelf where they live. Together we have two
boys, one girl, a Siamese cat, a Golden Retriever, a Guinea Pig, and
a mortgage. I mostly take care of the kids, snd I used to have a
part-time retail job where I pretended that I was a member of a
super-secret supernatural agency the culls vampires...because that's
what it took to get me through my shift. (When I was dealing with a
challenging customer, I would imagine our elderly maintenance man breaking
out with some serious mop-fu.) Now I work as a GNA (Geriatric Nursing Assistant) in
a long term care facility, and I love it. It's physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging, but
it's very rewarding. I hope to go on to get my RN and/or BSN.
My Universe is anachronistic -
I'm imagining my own teenage years (the 80s/90s) but adding in all the things from now that I enjoy, like cell phones and
the internet. Let's just call it my idealistic parallel universe. Just kind of go with me on this. *g*
In my fanfic I try to put into place the things I always thought should be
there. You'll be meeting a new character in my first story, Sins
of the Father. Her name is Gwen Hart, and I hope you'll like her.