Harrison-based novelist K.D. McCrite talked about her latest work of fiction and more on Wednesday.
McCrite appeared on KHOZ's "Around The Table" on Wednesday to discuss her work. Born and raised on a Missouri farm, McCrite grew into a writer who has 27 or 28 published books. Even her lawn-mowing chore became a form of storytelling. She would mow it into "strips" in order to build a town. She explained that this was her way of expressing the story she was telling herself.
The latest story she's telling is her book "Doorway to Eden," a combination of paranormal and romance. This new ghostly romance tells of a man who's cursed, and as a result, stuck in a painting. The man has inhabited the artwork for 100 years.
After he has lived in the painting for 100 years, a woman buys it while visiting a "junk store." She's the woman who finds the man and comes to fall in love with the man stuck in art. There's a twist.
This love story isn't one showing love through rosy lenses. In fact, McCrite said that after the couple fall in love, circumstances take a negative turn.
McCrite, an author since 1980, doesn't leave it there; she admits that there's "a happily ever after."
The local author attributes her passion to write to a humorous childhood experience. As a child, she would look at the "funny papers" with anticipation of growing up enough to be able to read. She wanted to make sense of what she saw.
"And then my sister use to tell me stories at night to get me to go to sleep, and she told me some weird and scary stories that—but sometimes she would tell me some really great ones," McCrite said. This led her to sharing stories with her nieces.
The writer recalled that after her sister went out and started a family, she took up her sister's storytelling. McCrite would spin tales for her nieces; they are six, seven and eight years younger than her. She said they "were kind of kids that grew up together.
Though she doesn't remember the stories she told, McCrite said her nieces do.
McCrite said that it was when she was around 12-year-old that she decided to put her stories on paper. More, like McCrite's upcoming books, was discussed on the broadcast.
The full interview with McCrite is available on the "Around The Table" Facebook Page.