The holiday production schedule always has me writing this note well before the end of the year, and with the way 2020 has progressed so far, it’s hard to think about – let alone write about – the typical New Year’s resolutions that generally come with the changing of the calendar.
I think it’s a universal hope that 2021 will be a better year for all of us!
But maybe new beginnings don’t have to wait until the beginning of the year to take root.
That certainly was the case for K.B. Pellegrino, the prolific murder-mystery author I had the pleasure of interviewing for this month’s feature story.
For her, the seeds of a new start were planted in the summer, and ripened as she decided to turn what had been a writing exercise into her first published novel.
But perhaps that’s the best kind of reinvention – one that isn’t necessarily planned, but just evolves.
We all have a passion – hers was voraciously reading murder-mystery novels – that led to a curiosity about what might drive a person to commit murder. Fueled by that writing prompt, that curiosity evolved into her first novel “Sunnyside Road: Paradise Dissembling”
“I think I missed my calling,” Pellegrino said, adding that the psychology behind the personality traits that compel people to act in certain ways have come to fascinate her. “But I would much rather look at it from the human perspective.”
That passion also has led her to research things others might find gruesome. “I love Google, but sometimes I’m afraid the CIA is going to come in and arrest me because I have Googled how to kill with this weapon, what poison to use,” she joked.
Demurring to admit her age, choosing instead to only joke she is “older than Methuselah,” Pellegrino shared that she believes it’s never too late to follow a passion.
‘I was talking to a woman at my last book signing [before COVID] and she said ‘Kathleen, I love to write but I’m dyslexic and my spelling is
terrible so I don’t.’ I told her to get a recorder and speak her story and get someone else to type it up,” she said, adding, “Anybody who wants to write should write.”
It seems the lesson here is that it doesn’t have to be January - or a New Year’s resolution - to fuel that fresh start. New beginnings can happen at any time. All it takes is passion.
Here’s to hoping you discover yours in 2021.
As always, thanks for reading,
Debbie Gardner
