Kathryn Bain was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.
"I grew up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I moved to Boise, but that evidently wasn't far enough! I had a father who was an alcoholic, and a mother who does anything to avoid confrontation,” Bain said.
“It was not a good family dynamic. I never felt loved, and I started drinking to feel important,” she said.
“Then I got pregnant. I stopped drinking the day I found out, but I didn't want to return to my family's home,” she said. “A friend was moving to Florida, and I decided to go with her. Two and a half days on a Greyhound bus. When bad stuff happens, you can either dig a hole or move forward. I moved forward."
She quickly found a job in Jacksonville.
"I put my expertise as a telephone salesperson to work!” she said. “It was easy to find a job, because nobody wants to do that, and I was very good at it."
Kathryn found a roommate who had a lead on a better job.
"She knew an attorney who was looking for a paralegal. I no experience at that, but he took a chance on me,” Bain said. “Of course, he didn't pay me much, but I've been doing that job for two different attorneys going on 27 years."
Her life unfolded nicely for a period.
"I was a single mom until my oldest daughter was seven years old. I got married, but my husband was a drinker and I starting back to drinking, too. And then I got pregnant again and quit. That took its toll on the marriage, and it ended,” she said.
“But I broke the cycle. My brother uses drugs, my grandfather was an alcoholic,” Bain said. “It's like it just rolls through my family. I found something to focus on."
Kathryn Bain initially focused on religion, without which, she says, she couldn't have broken the cycle. And she found something else, as well — writing books.
Bain said, "I had always read as a kid. Later on, I would read and watch mysteries on television and say, 'that could be done differently.' My oldest daughter got tired of hearing that and said, 'well, if you think you can do it better, why don't you?' So I did. But it's a lot harder that they make it out to be."
Writing, it turns out, is a perfect outlet for aspects of Kathryn's personality.
"It keeps me from going postal! I just kill people on paper. Someone ticks you off, you can turn them into a homeless dog, or kill them,” she said.
“You can do anything you want on paper. It's the perfect outlet to just escape into a different world, and really, that's why people read — to escape the reality they're in and enter another one,” she said.
“So if your life isn't going that well, read or write."
Kathryn Bain is both writing and reading. But not because her life isn't going well.
"Oh, my life's going wonderfully. My grandbaby is two, my oldest daughter is getting married again and my youngest is graduating from college. I've been a paralegal for 27 years and have a wonderful boss,” Bain said. “And I have seven books out! I'm moving. That's what you've gotta do, you gotta move."
