Kristi Holl is an award-winning author of 56 books for children, adults, and writers. (By the way, “Holl” rhymes with “doll.”) Her fiction books have won many honors, including Children’s Book Council list of Outstanding Books, Children’s Choice Awards, and Junior Library Guild selections. Recently, she switched to writing mysteries for adults, and she has nine of those in print as well. She taught writing for 27 years and is a frequent speaker at writers’ workshops. 

Kristi was born in Iowa, where her children were raised on a farm and in small towns. Some of her favorite mysteries are set in state parks there, and she still has many ties to Iowa. She and her husband now live in San Antonio near two of her daughters and four grandchildren. Kristi has always combined writing with parenting and, now, grandparenting. “It’s the best of both worlds!” she believes.

In her spare time, she reads, quilts, hikes, visits museums and historical sites, and dreams of visiting England again.

As a girl, who were your favorite authors?

I loved Louisa May Alcott who wrote Little Women; Doris Gates, who wrote Blue Willow and Sensible Kate; Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote The Secret Garden; and Madeleine L’Engle, who wrote A Wrinkle in Time. I was an adult before I discovered C.S. Lewis’s The Chonicles of Narnia, which also became favorites.

Did you always want to be a writer?

At the age of ten I wrote a sequel to Little Women called The Four Sisters because I didn’t want the book to end. But I didn’t dream of becoming a writer until I was nearly thirty. I really only wanted to grow up, get married, and have lots of children. In case no one married me, I decided to get an elementary teaching degree so I could be surrounded by children at school. I did get the teaching degree, but I only taught a short time before my first daughter, Jenny, was born, and then I stayed home. When my second daughter, Laurie, was born, I took a writing class through the mail and discovered I absolutely loved writing for children and early teens. I sold my first novel, Just Like a Real Family, right after my third daughter, Jacqui, was born. And I wrote my first five novels in a closet painted orange, my favorite color. 

What prompted your Writer’s First Aid blog?

On this blog, you won’t actually find bandages or medicine. But you will find my cures for dealing with disappointment and jealousy, writing despite physical and emotional pain, banishing procrastination, balancing writing and a day job, and combining writing with parenting (from infancy to adulthood.)

In my experience, with writing friends and hundreds of students, these are the issues that make writers throw up their hands and quit. But you don’t need to. We’re all in this together. If we pool our resources and share what’s worked for us, we’re all better off.

After college and marriage, I was at home with my three children (soon to become four). I had chronic migraine headaches and a host of neurological face and neck problems, with severe pain. It was then that my childhood dream became a reality. Writing. It was the most effective and reliable medicine I could find.

Since those days, I’ve had 56 books published, by both Christian and general interest publishers. I can’t imagine a life without writing now, but it hasn’t been easy. I know it isn’t easy for you either. I hope by visiting my blog you’ll find the encouragement you need to keep going–and ultimately share your own stories through the written word.

If you want some of these ideas in book form, see my two writing books: Writer’s First Aid (2003) and More Writer’s First Aid (2011).