#Welcome Wednesday with K B Walker

My #Welcome Wednesday guest is Crooked Cat author friend  - KB Walker. 

KB Walker

I'm delighted to welcome  Kimm back again. It's been a while since she last shared something here, though we managed a 'real live' brief hello in York last July when the Crooked Cat authors  gathered for a seminar. 

It's been a few years since I read Kimm's Crooked Cat novel Once Removed. It's a great read, with sensitively dealt with subject matter - Self Harm- and that's not the easiest thing to write about. 

She's sent along a really atmospheric poem to share, today, and a special kind of gift. I'll hand over to Kimm to explain what that is and how you can get it... 

Reading as a Group Effort

I love to read. It’d be my guess most authors do. The two activities have much in common as this poem reveals:

Through the window

Feet up, snug in a worn chair

Keyboard on my lap, I watch.

Sheep baa from the green slope,

Safe behind higgledy stone.

Cirrus clouds caper past,

Breezes stroke pregnant buds,

Branches quiver.

I pass through the glass

To the place where words play.

And slip inside the lives of others

In times and places of my desire.

Safely anchored, I can fearlessly touch

Death or birth, hate or pain,

Engineer wisdom and secure pleasure.

Fingers strive to craft readers’ portals

Into daydreams such as these.

Reading is an intensely personal experience. We disappear into worlds created by strangers (usually) but we take our baggage with us and see the story through our individual perspective. So why are readers’ groups so popular?

After my mother-in-law was widowed, she told me that Saturdays were the worst because she’d come home from her day out in town and have no one to share her observations with. Well-crafted books delight and often challenge us. It adds a dimension to our pleasure when we can share our observations and work through challenging ideas with others.

If I’m not deep in a book, I like to do Sudoku puzzles while watching favourite TV shows in the evening. Thank goodness my husband and friends drag me out of my boring comfort zone to try new things on a regular basis! Readers’ groups offer the equivalent service; pushing me to read books I would never have chosen myself.

Besides it’s great to have an excuse to meet with my friends over a long lunch and talk about books in and amongst everything else.

If you belong to a readers’ group, I offer a Readers’ Group Pack to accompany my book Once Removed. It includes some background information, questions for discussion (please don’t read them in advance, as they include spoilers), photographs of some of the settings and even a cake recipe to share over coffee or tea.

If you'd like a copy of the Readers’ Group Pack click HERE and Kimm will make arrangements to gift you one. 

Thank you, Kimm! I enjoyed your poem very much.

You'll find Kimm at: 

BLOG 

Amazon Author Page to buy Once Removed and a Life Less Lost. 

A little about KB Walker 

A storybook romance swept KB Walker from her American childhood to marriage, life and a teaching career in Yorkshire. Still captivated by the countryside after more than thirty years, Kimm enjoys bracing walks on the moors with her dog.

Becoming an author seemed as likely as being a princess or an astronaut but after twenty years at the chalk-face, Kimm left schools behind and set her mind to the dream. She's had several poems, short stories and articles published, won a handful of local prizes, as well as being invited to speak at events in the UK and US. 

Kimm's two grown up sons have left home now but in 1996, fifteen year old James was diagnosed and survived cancer against the odds. A Life Less Lost, her memoir of that experince, was published in 2009.

A foodie, Kimm recently discovered the joys of grow-your-own, loves 'doing up' old houses, reading, badminton, skiing and various crafts. 

Her debut novel, Once Removed, was published in 2012 by Crooked {Cat} Publishing.

Thank you for visiting, Kimm, and best wishes with all of your writing projects. 

Slainthe!