Getting Her Hands Dirty:

A Conversation with Kate Collins

by Janine Harrison

Mystery writer Kate Collins has come a long way since a childhood friend played Honey Wheeler and she, Trixie Belden, bikes becoming horses, galloping off to solve mysteries. Her Flower Shop Mystery Series, with eight books published and a ninth installment, Sleeping with Anemone, due out in February 2010, has gained international acclaim with readers in Australia, Korea, Malaysia, and the U.K. I asked her, an avid fan in her adolescence of both Belden and Nancy Drew, what her petite, redheaded protagonist, Abby Knight, has in common with these other two famous amateur sleuths.

"They’re all young, bold risk takers," she replied.

When asked what has amazed her most about Abby as she has come alive on the page, Collins said, "A lot has to do with other characters coming in. For example, her cousin Jillian, the serial fiancée jilter, and Abby have a sibling-like relationship. Jillian is a good foil, and I became surprised by how much Abby tolerates from her."

Finally Collins felt the need to explain why, to both readers and herself, and did so by giving Jillian a past—childhood scoliosis, to be exact.

Her Series’ fan base includes a large contingent of middle-aged women, as well as a following of florists, but in part because Abby Knight is contemporary, dressing in current styles and text messaging routinely, Collins is also gaining college and high school-aged audiences.

"Middle-aged women are knowledgeable about Twitter, etc., now too," she explained. "Younger women in the U.K. and Malaysia contact me by e-mail and Facebook. I have Facebook friends from Scotland, England and New Zealand."

Before her first book was published, to develop Bloomers flower shop as a realistic setting and Abby and Lottie as florists, Collins stated, "I went to a flower shop that actually stands where I envision Bloomers to be. I spent a lot of time with the guys there and asked a lot of questions. It was an absorption process."

Her editors now require two unusual flower arrangements per book, and Collins said, "That takes research. What’s in style changes not just with the flowers but containers too, and I feel an obligation to my florist readers."

When writing, she said, "You have to imagine being in people’s heads."

Abby’s favorite part of being a florist is delivering arrangements. Real florists told Collins that she "nailed" customers’ reactions to having received the flowers.

A romance writer prior to mysteries, Collins first historical romance was loosely based on the creation of Valparaiso University. Her second romance was set at Michigan City lighthouse. Abby Knight, too, hales from Northwest Indiana. A fictionalized Merrillville, spelled M-A-R-A-V-I-L-L-E, exists in the Series, and when asked, the writer stated that yes, she considers herself to be a regional writer. "When a book is set in a little town, people all over the country can relate to it and city dwellers find it exotic and cozy. ‘I can walk around New Chapel in my sleep,’ readers have said. ‘I think I can figure out where Bloomers is, but I don’t know where Down the Hatch is,’ they’ve told me."

Collins spoke, too, about how she has "grown" her characters by focusing on a different one in each book. She also experiments anew. In her favorite, Shoots to Kill, the story is intricately woven, involving an identity theft and a deadly double, and Collins said, "My muse really took over, and I had goose bumps at the end!"

In upcoming Sleeping with Anemone, readers will get a glimpse of the villain from a different point of view in three critical places. Perhaps these are reasons why her agent recently e-mailed her that she is speaking to an L.A. agent about the possibility of selling the Flower Shop Mysteries as a television series.

According to Collins, since her first novel, Mums the Word, published in 2004, the mystery genre has become much more of a niche market, with only a few publishing houses still buying traditional "cozy" mysteries. Many series based on such hobbies as cooking, wine tasting, quilting, and knitting have sprung up. She worries, in fact, that the market is narrowing its readership and advises writers interested in breaking into the genre to consider submitting niche work, since it is marketable, but to still appeal to as wide of a readership as possible. She also recommends that writers study the market to ascertain what is selling. Mystery Writers of America and Local Sisters in Crime (which admits brothers too), Collins stated, are very helpful organizations for mystery writers to join.

Abby Knight fans will be happy to know that Kate Collins intends to remain a mystery writer and that no grass is growing under her feet. She is working on her 10^th Flower Shop novel, the just titled Dirty Rotten Tendrils. When asked about the future of the Series, she answered rather mysteriously, "That depends on the readers!"

So far, so good—her work seems perennial.