Kathy Stinson's Biography

The clue that Kathy Stinson has had a lifelong love of reading is in the wide range of books that she has written. "What you read," she says, "influences what you write. And so does the day to day life that you live."

That's why some of Kathy's characters have argued with parents and friends, and had cozy chats with them; have had trouble sleeping and ridden bikes along dirt paths; have fallen for someone in the summer and walked both beaches and city streets.

Kathy says, "It's also fun, as a writer, to imagine yourself into situations unlike your own." That's what she did when she wrote about Marie-Claire, who lived through a smallpox epidemic in Montreal in 1885, and Mr. Elliot, the caretaker who waited till he was a grandfather before he learned to read.