Welcome to my website!

I am Kara Black, an aspiring author seeking representation and a publisher. My first novel - a beautiful love - is complete, and I am currently working on my second - For Love and Coffee. Please see the "Written Works" section for more information on either novel and use the "Contact" section to reach out to me to learn more. Continue reading to learn more about me, my writing style, and my writing journey.

I am still getting my headshot together, so, until then, enjoy these pictures of my adorable pups!

My Writing Journey

I have enjoyed creative writing since I was a child. I have distinct memories of handwriting a story - The Greatest Adeventure - in a black and white composition book, but then losing the notebook and having to start over. I recently found this second draft (and its sequel) and enjoyed reading it again. I truly believe that The Greatest Adventure would make an amazing children's story and have plans to make it marketable, but more on that later.

When my parents divorced, I used poetry as my emotional outlet, and a few of my poems were published in a national poetry contest. I would often write poems to create my own greeting cards for birthdays and holidays and am still amazed by some of the verses I wrote. I loved a poem I wrote so much that I submitted it to a school-wide contest at my college and received an honorable mention. Pretty good for a Psychology and Criminal Justice major.

I find that ideas for my stories are often sparked by the mundane - like driving to work, a class assignment, and even a song on the radio (yes, I still listen to the radio). I was inspired to write one poem after receiving a text from my mom and am currently writing an entire novel based on a single sentence that has been floating around my head for years.

a beautiful love actually started as the final project for my Utopian Literature class in college, but I knew there was more to tell and expanded on what I turned in, making it my first completed manuscript. I listened to alternative rock - like Fall Out Boy - while I was writing this novel and fully believe that you'll enjoy the story much more if you listen with the same soundtrack playing in the background.

Speaking of soundtracks, I often have a specific type of music playing while I'm writing, but the music is always different because each story is always different. For example, a beautiful love is a coming-of-age novel with hints of rebellion so alternative rock was perfect and helped me develop the story faster and with more detail, but For Love and Coffee is a romantic comedy, and I was completely distracted and unable to write more than a sentence at a time when I was listening to Fall Out Boy. When I switched to 1990s pop - Brittany Spears and Back Street Boys - I was able to focus, and the pages basically wrote themselves.

About Me

I am Kara Black. I wear many hats - from mother and wife to law enforcement officer to professional baker. Ever since I was a child, I have enjoyed writing stories and fondly remember the first one I wrote, which was about two young girls who traveled to the South Pole to play with penguins.

As a child, I often used writing to cope with stressful events and always enjoyed sharing my stories with my family and friends. I currently spend most of my time at my 9-5 helping crime victims, at home spending time with my family, and staying up way too late at night to bake Welsh cakes and other Celtic goodies for my home bakery customers.

In my limited spare time, I still enjoy writing stories, reading books, and playing board games. Sadly, I don't have nearly as much free time as I would like.

About My Writing Style

I am drawn to stories with strong female characters and love when the lady saves herself. Girl power! I tend to read cozy murder mysteries or fiction with bold women who are finding themselves, and I tend to write similarly strong characters as well. Every little girl (and the woman they grow up to be) deserves to have characters with whom they can resonate, and the world needs characters who are able to help people become the best versions of themselves.

I am a self-proclaimed eclectic writer. I enjoy writing poetry, short stories, and novels, and often combine some of the genres into a single piece, which makes me stand out as an author. For example, a beautiful love is a novel, but is told through fragmented first-person narratives that are intertwined with fairy tale-like stories. This mix may seem disjointed at first, but the stories are all connected and allows the readers to see the beauty in the characters' journeys and make parallels to their own lives.