Cail, Carol 1937-

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CAIL, Carol 1937-

(Kara Galloway)

PERSONAL: Born March 18, 1937, in Richmond, IN; daughter of Lester W. (a florist) and June (a florist; maiden name, Stephens) Peters; married Norman Cail (a mechanical engineer), July 8, 1956; children: Matthew, Todd. Ethnicity: "White American." Education: University of Arkansas, B.Ed. (with honors), 1961; University of Kentucky, M.Ed., 1964. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, cooking, hiking, listening to music.

ADDRESSES: Home and offıce—4 Colgate Court, Longmont, CO 80503. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Teacher of American history at a junior high school in Fayetteville, AR, 1965-67; Daily Office Supply, Longmont, CO, co-owner and operator, 1978-89; full-time writer, 1989—. Adult education teacher in Boulder, CO, 1991-98; Writer's Digest School, faculty member, 1994—; conference speaker. Longmont Landmark Designation Commission, member, 1990-95.

MEMBER: Mystery Writers of America, Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Novelists Inc., Sisters in Crime.

WRITINGS:

(Under pseudonym Kara Galloway) Sleight of Heart (romantic suspense novel), Harlequin (Buffalo, NY), 1990.

(Under pseudonym Kara Galloway) Love at Second Sight (romantic suspense novel), Harlequin (Buffalo, NY), 1991.

Ivory Lies (romantic suspense novel), Meteor Publishing, 1992.

Private Lies (mystery novel), Harper (New York, NY), 1993.

Unsafe Keeping (mystery novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

If Two of Them Are Dead (mystery novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Who Was Sylvia? (mystery novel), Deadly Alibi Press (Vancouver, WA), 2000.

The Seeds of Time (mystery novel), Deadly Alibi Press (Vancouver, WA), 2001.

Death Kindly Stopped (mystery novel), Deadly Alibi Press (Vancouver, WA), 2003.

His Horror the Mayor (mystery novel), Deadly Alibi Press (Vancouver, WA), 2003.

Cupid's Ghost (romantic suspense novel), PublishAmerica (Frederick, MD), 2004.

Work represented in anthologies. Contributor of poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews to magazines and newspapers, including Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery, Ellery Queen's Mystery, Creative Computing, Hawaii Review, Pinehurst Journal, Home Cooking, Murderous Intent, Cemetery Dance, Not One of Us, and True West.

SIDELIGHTS: Carol Cail writes mysteries featuring Maxey Burnell, a female newspaper owner in Boulder, Colorado. She told CA: "The fifth of these, Death Kindly Stopped, begins with a man murdered in the back of a limousine and ends when Maxey follows up clues from Emily Dickinson's poetry. I also write non-series mysteries. The Seeds of Time brought together two female psychics from two centuries to solve a past crime and prevent a future one."

Cail once told CA: "My tombstone should read 'Born to Write.' I wrote poetry before I learned to print, thanks to my mother taking dictation. In public school, I wrote stories for and about my friends.

"I graduated from Eaton High School, in Ohio, in 1955, and opened a flower shop in nearby Brookville. One year was enough of that. I got married, left my parents to make the shop a big success, and settled with my husband, Norm, in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he was an engineering student at Purdue University. I became a service representative (read that as complaint department) for Public Service.

"Next, we moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where Norm taught at the University of Arkansas, and I enrolled in the College of Education and discovered I could earn all A's now that I didn't have to worry about boys and where my next date was coming from. Degree in hand, I found a position teaching American history. It was as much fun as writing.

"Since this was before women's lib, there was never any question that I would give up this job and tag along with Norm on his next career move, to International Business Machines (IBM) in Lexington, Kentucky. No problem. I found something else I liked—giving birth to two sons and staying home to keep them from killing one another. Still a spare-time writer, I sold a poem at last, to a newspaper in Oregon, and shortly after that, a story to Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine.

"The publication log jam broken, I began to sell other poems and stories. IBM relocated Norm to Boulder, Colorado, and when Norm decided he'd rather work overtime for his own company, we purchased Daily Office Supply, and I helped him work those self-employed overtime hours. Writing time was scarce, but I kept my hand in. Too soon, our sons grew up, finished college, and moved away.

"I continued to sell various writings, until I could claim I'd sold as many poems as I was years old. In 1989, with patron Norm to pay my bills, I stepped off an imaginary bungee cord platform to the ups and downs of a full-time writing career. Then I wrote my first novel."

Cail recently added: "Five years and five novels later, I was invited to teach fiction writing by correspondence school workshops for Writer's Digest School. As H. G. Wells said, 'No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.' I do love to teach as much as I love to write."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, March 1, 2000, Rex E. Klett, review of Who Was Sylvia?, p. 127; August, 2001, Rex E. Klett, review of The Seeds of Time, p. 169.

Publishers Weekly, July 17, 1995, review of Unsafe Keeping, p. 224; June 11, 2001, review of The Seeds of Time, p. 65.