Each year my protagonist Kiki Lowenstein prepares twelve days of classes in the runup to Christmas. These are taught at the crafts store she owns, Time in a Bottle. At first, I called this even her Twelve Days of Christmas Crafting Extravaganza, but in deference to the many other friends who celebrate winter holidays, it’s now called the Holiday Crafting Extravaganza.
That means that every year, I have to come up with twelve crafts for her to teach! In other words, I have the perfect excuse for spending hours and hours on Pinterest. I can write off my many trips to Michaels Crafts, JoAnn’s Fabrics, and even the hardware stores.
I have to admit that this research is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. I am a serial crafter. I love turning junk into cool stuff, and the more recycled or low cost my original materials, the better. Recently I’ve taken to stockpiling cardboard boxes to turn into miniature houses. (Okay, that’s really just a good excuse to order things from Amazon.)
My husband teases and calls me The Queen of Cute. I love that nickname! My sisters and I joke that everyone needs a little Vitamin C, with C being short for Crafting. I truly believe that creating anything is a great way to boost your mood. When I’m working on a Zentangle® project or sewing or sculpting in clay, I forget everything except the project at hand. Time flies by.
Writing is another way I exercise my creativity. In my books, I try to tackle problems that intrigue me in real life. In Fleece, Navi, Dead: Book #16 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, the plot revolves around a stalker and his victim. Seventy-six percent of the women killed by an intimate partner were stalked first. Currently, there’s a movement to revoke gun ownership privileges from those who’ve been convicted of stalking. Cyberstalking is the newest iteration of stalking, giving perpetrators a virtual way of making people’s lives miserable.
Fleece, Navi, Dead is the longest Kiki book I’ve ever written. My readers told me they wanted longer books, and I complied. I do my best to listen to what my readers want. Making them happy is my goal. Since Fleece, Navi, Dead currently has a five-star ranking on Amazon, it seems like I’ve succeeded.
Kiki Lowenstein: Book 16
Publication Date: October 31, 2021
Each year my protagonist Kiki Lowenstein prepares twelve days of classes in the runup to Christmas. These are taught at the crafts store she owns, Time in a Bottle. At first, I called this even her Twelve Days of Christmas Crafting Extravaganza, but in deference to the many other friends who celebrate winter holidays, it’s now called the Holiday Crafting Extravaganza.
That means that every year, I have to come up with twelve crafts for her to teach! In other words, I have the perfect excuse for spending hours and hours on Pinterest. I can write off my many trips to Michaels Crafts, JoAnn’s Fabrics, and even the hardware stores.
I have to admit that this research is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. I am a serial crafter. I love turning junk into cool stuff, and the more recycled or low cost my original materials, the better. Recently I’ve taken to stockpiling cardboard boxes to turn into miniature houses. (Okay, that’s really just a good excuse to order things from Amazon.)
My husband teases and calls me The Queen of Cute. I love that nickname! My sisters and I joke that everyone needs a little Vitamin C, with C being short for Crafting. I truly believe that creating anything is a great way to boost your mood. When I’m working on a Zentangle® project or sewing or sculpting in clay, I forget everything except the project at hand. Time flies by.
Writing is another way I exercise my creativity. In my books, I try to tackle problems that intrigue me in real life. In Fleece, Navi, Dead: Book #16 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, the plot revolves around a stalker and his victim. Seventy-six percent of the women killed by an intimate partner were stalked first. Currently, there’s a movement to revoke gun ownership privileges from those who’ve been convicted of stalking. Cyberstalking is the newest iteration of stalking, giving perpetrators a virtual way of making people’s lives miserable.
Fleece, Navi, Dead is the longest Kiki book I’ve ever written. My readers told me they wanted longer books, and I complied. I do my best to listen to what my readers want. Making them happy is my goal. Since Fleece, Navi, Dead currently has a five-star ranking on Amazon, it seems like I’ve succeeded.
Joanna Campbell Slan is an Award-Winning, National Bestselling, and USA Today Bestselling author. Her personal essays appear in five of the New York Times Bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and one was adapted as a television segment for the PAX TV network. Joanna has penned seven scrapbooking technique books, and she has written for Creating Keepsakes, Memory Makers, and PaperKuts magazines. Joanna has traveled around the world to teach scrapbook journaling.
Joanna has also written more than 30 works of fiction. RT Reviews has called her “one of mystery’s rising stars.” Her first mystery in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series—Paper, Scissors, Death—was shortlisted for the Agatha Award. Joanna’s series featuring Charlotte Brontë’s classic heroine Jane Eyre began with Death of a Schoolgirl, which won the 2013 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence for historical romantic suspense. As the editor and publisher of the Happy Homicides anthologies, Joanna has been on Amazon’s list of Top 100 Mystery Authors.
Joanna’s college textbook—Using Stories and Humor—has been endorsed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s speechwriter as his favorite resource and has been endorsed by Toastmasters.
The Public Relations Society of America honored Joanna with a Silver Anvil (their highest award) for her work on the first FarmAid. Joanna has been accredited by PRSA as a professional public relations practitioner. She is a certified teacher of Zentangle® and certified in Personal Profiles. Slan founded the Best of British Scrapbooking and Cardmaking contest.
In her past life, Slan was a television talk show host, an adjunct professor of public relations at Illinois State University, a sought-after motivational speaker, and a corporate speechwriter. Sharing Ideas Magazine named Joanna “one of the top 25 motivational speakers in the world.” She has spoken in Australia, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and all over the United States, to audiences of all sizes.
Joanna is married to David Slan, CEO of Steinway Piano Gallery-DC and Steinway Piano Gallery-St. Louis, and a professional poker player. The Slans have one son, Michael, and a daughter-in-law, Chelsea Edwards. They live with their Havanese puppy Jax on Jupiter Island, Florida.
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Congratulations on another book. I don’t know how you do it. Sounds wonderful!
I love the title, cover and synopsis, this sounds like an awesome cozy mystery book and series. Thank you for sharing the author’s bio and book details