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Arts & Entertainment

Benicia Author: Kathryn Reiss

Children's novelist releases her 16th and 17th book.

For the past twenty years, Kathryn Reiss has been writing mysteries for children. This week, her 16th and 17th books were released.  A Bundle of Trouble and The Silver Guitar are part of the American Girl series, for girls nine and older.

Reiss and husband Tom Strychacz moved to Benicia from Oakland in 1997. Their house was built in 1867 for arsenal officers, it's vintage character maintained with antique furnishings. “It's part of owning an old house,” says Reiss. The cozy-nook rooms housed their five children, the youngest now a high school sophomore.

Reiss was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Ohio, reading Trixie Belden mysteries. “I was a total book worm,” she admits. Wanting to be a writer from the age of six, Reiss' mother told her, “Go ahead send out your things, the worse thing they can say is no.”

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At Duke University, Reiss received B.A. degrees in English and German and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. As a Fulbright Scholar, Reiss lived in Germany where she wrote her first novel.

Her audience is middle-grade children, ages 8 to 12 and young adults, ages 13 to 17. The protagonist is always a kid telling the story from their own perspective. Although readers are young, Reiss does not write down to children.

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Reiss' books  feature popular characters who solve mysteries during significant times in America’s history. Many have a supernatural element, with a story from the past the merges with the present. She cleverly folds history into her stories through time travel, parallel universes, hauntings and reincarnation.

The Silver Guitar is set in San Francisco in the 1970's. “I was a girl in the 1970's so I had first-hand knowledge”. In Paper Quake, triplets find letters to during a swarm of earthquakes in San Francisco, that were written in 1906. The split time concept challenges the reader. In Paint by Magic, an eleven year old boy travels to the 1920's to save his mom from a mad artist.

“My interest in history comes from my interest in time travel, or is it that I'm interested in time travel because I'm interested in history?” As research, Reiss reads science fiction and fantasy and is currently reading Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife.

When Reiss' first book was published in 1991, she had three books already finished. “Once I sold the first one, it was exciting to revise the other ones.” She's written several books for American Girl, who's mission is to provide historical fiction for girls. Although the central characters were developed by American Girl, the stories are all Reiss'.

Because American Girl books are merchandised together, the authors are not promoted as individuals, nor are their names listed on the covers. Still, Reiss says, “I love the product. They have their heart in the right place. They really are about quality of historical fiction.”

What keeps Reiss writing? “It keeps me off the streets,” was her first answer. “It's because I had all these ideas kicking around in my head.” She keeps a notebook of ideas and eventually a story takes shape. She keeps back burner ideas simmering while she is finishing a book. It takes nine months to write a book, then three more to revise it. Reiss is currently working on two books.

Reiss still teaches at Mills College two days a week; a class on writing for youths and an MFA class on genre writing. She clarifies by saying, “Children's writing is it's own body of literature with all the genre's within it.”

For fun, she and Strychacz dine out locally and take ballroom dancing at Imagine Studios. Reiss regularly meets with friends and visits Bookshop Benicia, which holds book signings for her.

“I'd love to write a book set in Benicia...” Last week, Reiss was walking her dog when he disappeared into the dense fog and she thought, “What if you are walking in the fog, and you just disappeared. When the fog dissipated, it's still Benicia, but not the same Benicia?” We'll just have to wait for that book to be released.

Reiss's books are available at . 

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