Hot Reads For Cold Night Program-Author Julie Kramer

Our first Hot Reads program will feature Suddenly Susan author Julie Kramer (sister Mary works for the library) as our guest speaker Thursday, January 22nd at 7 pm in the library. Refreshments will be provided. Hot Reads for Cold Nights Programs are co-sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Library Staff, and run for eight weeks January 15-March 13th.





After working in TV news for years, including two decades at WCCO and freelance production stints with Dateline, NBC's Today Show and Nightly News, Julie Kramer knows how to tell a true story. Turns out, she can make up some good ones, too. "Like most journalists, I thought I had a novel in me," she says. "But boy, they don't write themselves. You have to grab them and pull them kicking and screaming onto the page."

Her first book, "Stalking Susan," a crime-thriller about an investigative TV journalist on the trail of a serial killer is a snappily paced debut thriller, TV reporter Riley Spartz tries to stop a serial killer who's targeting women named Susan. Truly scary, no matter what your name is.

"I like to weave in real detail," says Kramer, "because I love to read books set in places I know, and because it's a newsroom thriller. Ten years ago, Kramer worked on a story about two cold cases involving murdered women named Susan. The cases remain unsolved, and lingered in her memory, becoming the seed of inspiration for the book. "I changed a lot of details about the locations, the decade, the women's occupations, and I added more murders. I almost changed the name Susan, but I didn't, because I wanted to keep something of them alive in the story.

For Kramer, that question is followed by, 'What next?' Her book took 2 1/2 years, from start to sale — warp speed for the book business, although painfully slow for this newsroom veteran.
Kramer's book sold as a two-book package, which meant she had to turn in a sequel within a year. Now deadlines, she could handle.

Julie Kramer grew up on the Minnesota-Iowa border, left WCCO to spend more time with her teenage sons and to pursue national freelance work. She lives in White Bear Lake and is married to Joe Kimball, a former Star Tribune columnist who now writes for MinnPost.

I borrowed Amy Goetzman's article in the MinnPost newspaper for this blog. Amy is a freelance writer and editor who has covered the arts for the Rake, City Pages, Star Tribune and Minnesota Monthly, as well as culture topics for Salon.com, The New York Times and Babble.com, writes about books, libraries and the Twin Cities literary scene.