Estill, Katie

PERSONAL:

Married Daniel Woodrell (an author). Education: Kenyon College, B.A.; Iowa Writer's Workshop, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—West Plains, MO.

CAREER:

Author. Has worked as an English tutor in Greece and taught at the collegiate level in the United States.

WRITINGS:

Evening Would Find Me (novel), Ontario Review Press (Princeton, NJ), 2000.

Dahlia's Gone (novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Author's works have been translated into Norwegian and Swedish.

Also author of short stories.

SIDELIGHTS:

A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Katie Estill is a novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, Evening Would Find Me, was inspired by her years of living in Greece as an English tutor. While she was there, the mentally unbalanced wife of a painter committed suicide by jumping out a window; the author was there to witness the aftermath. In Evening Would Find Me, she writes of an American living in Greece who has an affair with a painter whose wife is similarly mentally ill. The three form a complex relationship in which Sylvia's affair with Aristedes is known to his wife, Althea, yet Sylvia also plays a role as confidant to Althea. Calling the work "somewhat uneven," a Publishers Weekly critic added that "all the right elements are in place to produce an engrossing story—a seductive setting, attractive characters and dramatic love affair." Vanessa Bush praised the author in Booklist for the way she "evokes Greek culture, customs, and landscapes in this story of passion and madness."

Estill's next novel, Dahlia's Gone, is set in the Ozark mountains, where the author herself has settled down. On the surface, the book is a murder mystery in which the young girl of the title is killed in her home. The heart of the story, though, concerns how the death affects three female characters: Norah, who is Dahlia's stepmother and was away on vacation at the time; Sand, who was supposed to be watching the girl and her brother, Timothy, at the time; and Patti, a deputy in charge of investigating the crime. Calling the book an "accomplished" and "fast-paced character study," a Kirkus Reviews contributor praised the novel as a "perceptive meditation on the bonds of faith and family." "More than an intriguing mystery," Peg Brantley similarly remarked in Armchair Interviews, "Katie Estill pulls us into the lives of these women who each must find her own way of coping with tragedy."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Arkansas Democrat Gazette, April 29, 2007, Sarah E. White, "Grieving Stepmother Readers Love to Hate."

Booklist, April 15, 2000, Vanessa Bush, review of Evening Would Find Me, p. 1522.

417, February, 2007, Gregory Holman, "What Women Want," review of Dahlia's Gone and interview with Katie Estill.

Kansas City Star, June 30, 2007, Nancy Mays, review of Dahlia's Gone.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2006, review of Dahlia's Gone, p. 1091.

Midwest Book Review, September 13, 2000, review of Evening Would Find Me.

Publishers Weekly, April 17, 2000, review of Evening Would Find Me, p. 50; November 6, 2006, review of Dahlia's Gone, p. 38.

ONLINE

Armchair Interviews,http://www.armchairinterviews.com/ (May 16, 2007), Peg Brantley, review of Dahlia's Gone.

Emerging Writers Forum,http://www.breaktech.net/emergingwritersforum/ (September 13, 2002), Dan Wickett, "Interview with Katie Estill"; (April 7, 2007), review of Dahlia's Gone.

Fresh Fiction,http://freshfiction.com/ (May 16, 2007), review of Dahlia's Gone.

Ozarks Magazine Online,http://www.ozarksmagazine.com/ (May 16, 2007), Lin Waterhouse, review of Dahlia's Gone.