Education
She graduated from law school in Washington and practiced law in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer.
She graduated from law school in Washington and practiced law in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on a novel. After her mom's death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper and research they'd collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.
Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she'd read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That's when her husband reminded her of the book she'd started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred her to try harder, work more. In 1990, Kristin got "the call," and in that moment, she went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and has never looked back. In all the years between then and now, she has never lost her love of, or her enthusiasm for, telling stories. Kristin feels truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. Her novel, Firefly Lane, became a runaway bestseller in 2009, a touchstone novel that brought women together.
Movies: Fargo, Raising Arizona, Notting Hill, Lord of the Ring, Gone with the Wind, The Matrix, It's a Wonderful Life, The Way We Were, The Godfather, Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, West Side Story, Pan's Labryinth
Books: Inamorata, Sentimental Journey, Mai Tai One On, Shutter Island, Water for Elephants, The Road, Beautiful Ruins, 11/22/63, The Goldfinch, Dark Places, The Cuckoo's Calling, Room, The Lord of the Rings, To Kill a Mockingbird, As I Lay Dying, The Shining, The Stand, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Turtle Moon, The Prince of Tides, The Bean Trees, Dune, The Shadow of the Wind, Peachtree Road, The Thorn Birds, Gone with the Wind, The Great Gatsby, The Witching Hour, Queen of the Damned, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Atonement
Songs: Dancing in the Dark, Glory Days, Music of the Night, Crazy for You, Only the Good Die Young, Candle in the Wind, Imagine
Musicals: The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Jesus Christ Superstar, West Side Story, My Fair Lady
Television shows: Breaking Bad, Orphan Black, Sons of Anarchy, Orange is the New Black, Lost, M*A*S*H, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Carnivale, Survivor, Project Runway, Twin Peaks, Prison Break
She lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with her husband and their son.