Kathleen Fuller only began writing novels in her thirties, about a quarter century ago. Her children were little, and when she had time, she says she would read Christian fiction.
"My kids were little and in between naps and meals and all that. And then I thought, you know what, I think I just might want to try doing this."
So she did.
"And I was awful, awful, awful, awful. Lesson learned, I got educated."
Fuller, who admits she can be her own worst critic, took a three-year correspondence course with a concentration on writing romances, and then joined Romance Writers of America.
"After I learned how to write, I started putting my work out there and it got picked up and the rest is history. That was January 1, 2000, when I decided to do this."
Now, Kathleen Fuller has 70 published novels and novellas to her credit, and she has sold more than 2 million books. Her novel Written in Love was awarded the 2018 Romantic Times Inspirational Romance of the Year. She's a retired special education teacher living in central Arkansas, and Thursday night she'll be at Pearl's Books in Fayetteville to read from her work.
The evening is billed as Plots and Crafts. She wants you to bring a quiet craft like knitting, drawing or crochet to work on while she reads. She says she developed this reading and crafting idea, along with her publicist, to mix two of her loves together — books and crochet.
"I started just by putting things on social media. I made this, I made a flower, I made a green square, whatever. But last year I started a YouTube channel where I do granny squares that are inspired by my book covers. It's called the Reading Crochet Along. And my business is called Books and Hooks. I wanted to combine that. And so when Cody and I were talking, how about if we combine this when you go out to a library or a bookstore — and as a former teacher, reading aloud is something that I have done all my life. So that's kind of how the germ of the idea started. And since we have Books and Hooks, Cody came up with Plots and Crafts. We had our first one in Cabot. It went really well and there's been a lot of excitement. I have some booked in Ohio when I go to visit in October."
Kathleen Fuller says her books are specifically designed to not raise your blood pressure. Her latest, Behind Enemy Bylines, is about a newspaper editor in the fictional small town of Clementine, Arkansas, and the executive from Atlanta trying to convince him to sell his locally focused newspaper to an Atlanta-based conglomerate. Oh, and they used to date. In Hooked on You, Riley returns to her hometown of Maple Falls, Arkansas, to help run the family yarn store. Much Ado About a Latte turns longtime friends Anita and Tanner into business rivals. It's another Maple Falls romance.
Kathleen Fuller says in a pressure-cooker time like 2026, there are readers seeking out the calm.
"You don't always need something that's thrilling, raising your blood pressure. Sometimes we just need something that's entertaining, something that's cozy. That's something that a lot of people attribute to mine, and I'm very happy being in that niche. Very happy, because it's what I'm drawn to. I just like a nice, entertaining, light read. And I think that's important, especially when things in life are so tumultuous — we can come to fiction, storytelling, movies, things like that, and have kind of just a break and a breath."
Not all of her novels are set in small-town Arkansas. She's written more than two dozen works of Amish fiction.
"My responsibility from the very first book I wrote was to portray the Amish people and their culture as respectfully as possible, with the understanding that real life can be boring at times. So when I write my Amish fiction books, there is an element of unreality to it, but I've always made sure that my characters don't do anything outlandish or something that wouldn't happen in an Amish community. Early on, I had an Amish friend and she vetted a lot of my books and she steered me in the right direction. Maria was fantastic in that. I want to portray Amish as realistically as possible, yet write an entertaining book."
Kellams: Do you hear from Amish readers?
“I have in the past, so I used to live in Ohio. I've been back in Arkansas. I'm from Little Rock, but I've been back in Arkansas for almost ten years now. And so I don't hear from Amish readers now, but I have done book signings in Ohio and have met in person Amish readers that read my stories. A lot of times, they read them, I know that they read them, but they just don't reach out. And if they reached out, they'd have to do it through a letter.”
Kathleen Fuller will be at Pearl's Books in Fayetteville Thursday night for Plots and Crafts. Bring your knitting needles or sketch pad from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. You can find out more about her and her books at kathleenfuller.com.
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