Every author's journey is different. Samantha and the Legend of the Whispering Trees, a middle-grade novel, was the first book that started my writer's life. So many authors have a moment or person who inspired them. Mine was a Commercial Music Producer who came to Universal Recording Studio in Chicago to record his commercial jingles. One day as he was leaving the studio, he turned to me and said, “I had a dream about you last night - you should be a writer."
Then, I moved on from Universal Recording to a new employer at an advertising agency. One cold winter night after work, I was walking down Michigan Avenue, and a copyrighter from the agency stopped me on the street and then he said, "you should be a writer."
After receiving these two messages, I decided to explore writing and signed up for Screen Writing class at Columbia College, Chicago and received a third prompt to become a writer. My instructor was Paul Max Rubenstein, a former Walt Disney employee and co-author of Writing for Media. He gave me continual encouragement for my writing journey. The outcome of the class, my screen writing script became the source for my first women’s fiction novel. After I journeyed from Chicago to Denver, I joined a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer’s critique group led by Mary Ann Kersten, a very talented inspiration for many Colorado authors.
Now I love the wonders of being a writer. I can research and explore new worlds, new ways to look at life, and new ways to share my discoveries in my children’s books and my women’s fiction novels. And I hope my books bring wonder to my readers.
My personal life influences my writing. My first women’s fiction is an outgrowth of my stewardess life in the 1960s.
Here is a Kirkus review for my first women’s fiction novel Sky Queen:
"Kundert paints a vivid portrait of Katherine's flight attendant world. A thoughtful and sensitively observed tale with a heroine whose adventures are worth following."
And my middle grade novels are my ideas about life to entertain and inspire middle grade kids to see wonders in the world.
Here’s a portion of Bestseller’s review for my new middle grade novel, Abigail and Sego’s Magical Train Ride:
“Abigail and Sego’s Magical Train Ride is a time warp story roller-coasting throughout the Transcontinental Railroad to the present time of 1976 while intermixing lifestyles, events, and influential people of both times. Adding supernatural assistance helps to explain the past in their current time while fulfilling a family’s lifelong dreams. Abigail and Sego’s Magical Train Ride
is a delightful romp for those of us over the half-century mark. Numerous references to people and events of a prior time are enjoyable to remember, such as Nancy Drew books, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Polar Express Line, Ted Nugent, Moon River, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and many references to our country’s western expansion.”