Here is what Kim Harris says about herself, in her own words. This bio contains links to a short story that you will love. Her writing style is so witty and fun. Enjoy! Let's support Kim Hunt Harris so we can have many more of these self-published stories!
When I was about twenty and newly married,
my husband gave me a little gray poodle named Phoebe (he found her on AM radio
Swap Shop. True Story.) It was love at first sight. Phoebe was our first child
and we treated her as such. We took her everywhere with us and spoiled her
rotten. I was devoted to her and wanted to find out all about how to take care
of her, so I checked out a bunch of books from the library. One of the books
was on poodle grooming. Up to that point, I hadn’t even known such a career as
dog grooming existed. As I browsed through the different style cuts, I realized
I might have found a second calling (my first calling had always been to write
books, but the New York publishing scene had yet to discover me, owing to the
fact that I had yet to write anything worth publishing.) I told my husband I
wanted to be a dog groomer.
We found a school in our city that offered
a ten-week course in dog grooming, and I was off. I loved working with dogs. Loved it. There’s nothing like a
dog, is there? Simple, pure, full of joy (some of them, anyway.) During that
period of my life, I was quite introverted (I still am, but not quite as much.)
I found dogs much easier to deal with than people. I loved learning how to
groom the different breeds, how to perfect my craft, and I loved the people I
worked with. I met some awesome, gigantic-hearted people while I was grooming.
You have to have a huge heart to groom, right? It takes love, patience and
kindness in enormous amounts. It takes perseverance, diligence and
professionalism – and a buttload of
energy. Am I right? It’s a physically demanding job, dog grooming.
My plan from the beginning was to groom
until I became rich and famous as a writer. I groomed during the day, snatching
moments between dogs to work on scenes, coming back to the computer at night to
finish up my word count. The years went by, and I did manage to sell a couple
of books, but I didn’t reach a level of success that would allow me to write
exclusively. And after about a dozen years, I found myself getting burnt out. I
still loved the dogs. But everything else
about grooming seemed to drive me increasingly crazy. The hair, stuck in skin
on the inside of my elbow. Hair getting into everything – my purse, my clothes,
breathing tiny little pieces of hair into my nose.The noise – barking, hair
dryers.The smell of dog dip.The…okay, the poop. I got tired of the poop. It
wasn’t the poor dogs’ fault, but still… I got really tired of dog poop.
I told a friend of mine at the time that I
had reached a point where I couldn’t see the good anymore; I was so tensed against
the things that bugged me, that’s all I thought about anymore. I knew it was
time for a change, so I went back to school, found an office job, and worked my
way up to editor in a university transportation research center. I would be
hard pressed to find two different careers – editing research reports on
asphalt and bridge structures, and grooming dogs. But there you go. Life is
like that sometimes.
I kept writing, though, and eventually
created a series of comic mysteries featuring – what else, but a dog groomer
(editor of transportation research not lending itself to comic scenarios)?
Salem Grimes loves her dog Stump (I love Stump, too – the fact that she’s a
product of my own imagination notwithstanding) and loves her job, and people
seem to keep conveniently dying around her, which is helpful for plotting
purposes. She has an octogenarian friend named Viv who doesn’t realize she’s
supposed to be old and frail, and together they get into one scrape after
another. The stories have been so much fun to write, and I plan to keep with
these girls until they will no longer tolerate me. The series is called The Trailer Park Princess, and so far I
have one full-length novel and two short stories, with another novel due to be
released in late summer/early fall.
When it came time to turn to marketing for
my books, I tried to think who my target audience would be. Besides the
obvious, I mean – people who like to read comic mysteries? Then I thought –of
course! Groomers! Lots of the groomers I knew loved to read in the downtime. I
discovered a lot of great authors that way, and maybe if I could attract the
attention of some, I could find my
audience.
I started doing some research online and
found BBird’s fabulous GroomBlog with all the beautiful pictures. I breathed in
a deep, “Aaahhh,” for lots of reasons. One: I’d found, I hoped, a place where I
could connect with readers and offer my work, and two:…the
dogs! Oh, the beautiful, sweet, lovely dogs. I really miss grooming sometimes. So much. I’m in love with that Soft
Coated Wheaton with the Benji cut.
GroomBlog has been generous enough to allow
me this space to present to you a short story entitled The Trailer Park Princess and the Power of Bacon. The story was
available exclusively on Amazon Kindle, but I have removed it for sale and am
offering it free here.
I hope you read it and I hope you enjoy it. Salem and Viv are on the hunt for a
kidnapped Maltese, a story that was inspired by real life events – when I
worked at a shop in Grapevine, TX, the owner of the local funeral home told us
her dog (I don’t remember now if it was Maltese) had been kidnapped by her
cleaning lady and was being held for ransom and I remembered that years later
because…well, you don’t forget a story like that, do you? The rest of it is
made up, but I have a real life customer to thank for the inspiration. I’m
betting you’ve heard some pretty wild stories in your time, too.
Anyway, I thank Barbara for allowing me
this chance to reach out to her readers, and I thank you for your time. Read
the story – it’s free! And if you like it, buy the books! The links are below.
And tell all your reading friends. You know as well as anyone how important
word-of-mouth advertising is. And in the meantime, I wish you peaceful,
joy-filled days, sharp scissors, and dogs who have taken care of their business
before they come to your table. Happy Grooming!
Here are links to more of Kim Harris' work. Read. Share! Let's support a former groomer who is manifesting her life's dream to be a writer. I'm in 100%!
Links to my books:
The full-length Salem Grimes novel The Trailer Park Princess and The Middle Finger of Fate: Here
A romantic comedy (not related to the TPP stories, but the heroine does own a pet store) Her Something Impetuous: Here
Leave your comments for Kim Harris below. How did you like the stories? Kim's blog is way cool, also: click here to go directly to some of her posts.
Thanks for the read! Lots of fun!
ReplyDeleteThank you Julie!
ReplyDeleteKim Hunt Harris