By Margaret Lea Growing up, Kristen Kiesling would watch a crime show and want to be a detective or watch a medical drama and want to be a doctor. Her dad owned a commercial greenhouse in a rural setting, and Kristen thought, even back then, that a compost pile full of worms would be a great place to hide a dead body. She grew up near Tulsa, OK but now lives in Katy and is part of our Houston SCBWI chapter. Kristen heard her fair share of, “You should be a writer,” from teachers throughout the years, but she didn’t see how that could be a viable career, so she got a business degree at University of Oklahoma and worked for IBM. She took a few years off when her kids were born, then got her teaching certification and taught 3rd grade for a couple of years. She has since stopped teaching full time but misses interacting with the kids. She recently became involved with WITS— Writers in the Schools— where she enj...
Interviews with those in the publishing industry and short writing tips