About Kim Strickland

I've wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember. I finished my first novel, Sundance, at the age of twelve and boldly sent it off to The Knopf Publishing Company, where a kind young editor, Wendy Wolf, gently let me down. (I still have her letter!)

In spite of early rejection, I remained confident. However, I did decide at the age of 14 that the starving artist life wasn't for me and took my first literary let down as a cue to become an airline pilot. After all, those pilots made a decent living and they had lots of time off work. Time I would use to write. So, after high school I went to the University of Illinois to start flight training. After college, with a degree in Journalism and my flight training complete, I was excited to start my first real post-graduate job -- tending bar at Murphy's Pub.

Soon afterward, I earned more gainful employment and began building my flight hours as a flight instructor at the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation. Several years and airline uniforms later, I landed (sorry) at a major airline in 1990. It wasn't long thereafter that I returned to my fiction writing in earnest. My plan had come together.

After several false starts on a few different novels, in 2002 I finally finished what I considered a viable draft of Wish Club and began the long process of getting it published. Wish Club was released by Crown books, a division of Random House, in June of 2007, to great press and reviews. My second novel, Down at the Golden Coin, is awaiting publication and I am now at work on my third.

I presently live and write in Chicago with my husband, our three children, two cats and a dog. You can contact me thru this website or my blog if you wish - I would love to hear from you!

When I'm not being a mom, writing, speaking, or attending literary events, I fly as a First Officer on Boeing 767's and jet off to Europe or South America and a few other destinations -- all equally wonderful in that, while I'm there, I usually get to eat an entire meal sitting down.