Meet Connie Kronlokken of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Connie Kronlokken.

Hi Connie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a large Scandinavian Lutheran family in the Midwest, but as my horizons widened, I wanted to live where culture was being made. I left for San Francisco in 1969. I had always wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t see a good way to make writing pay for my life. I also didn’t think I had enough to say. I immersed myself in living my best San Francisco life and learned from everything, while continuing to journal and write.

While working at administrative jobs, I managed to self-publish a couple of novels, but when I retired in 2010, I was finally able to write full time. I was sure I wanted to write a family-oriented saga set during the years I grew up. The years I worked on this, doing research and begging my brother and sisters to read and critique what I was doing were good ones. The last of the seven books in the series So Are You to my Thoughts was published in 2020.

Today I maintain two active blogs: one points to women, either characters or actual people from whom I have learned or found interesting, called Women and Mountains and the other details my current inner journey, called The Work of the Pilgrim.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The playing field of the reading public has not been an easy one in recent years. Agents and publishers will not pay attention to you unless they are certain your book will make money. People are spoiled by easy pastimes such as television. In addition, my message is a bit subversive. It is pro-family, which one critic described as seeing “family as both anchor and springboard.”

The other challenge was my age. I felt I needed to finish the books while I had the energy, rather than look for marketing and publicity people. Thus, I used Creatspace to self-publish the books, with professional book design by my husband Don Starnes. Createspace has been folded into Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, however, and all of my books are available from Amazon. This in itself is a challenge, since who wants to buy from Amazon?! The books also turn up now on many sites, such as Barnes & Noble and eBay.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
So Are You to my Thoughts is episodic, following three siblings throughout the vicissitudes of their lives. Growing up during a time of great expansion in the United States post World War II, the three siblings all leave home and choose mates not from their own culture. This exogamy directs them to make families as strong as their childhood one, despite being very different and having typical troubles.

A few reviews which are not from family and friends have shown me what is unique in my writing: “I can feel the heart behind every page.” “Her writing plants your feet firmly on the ground, or in a canoe, describing simply the color of the water, the smell of bread, the direction of the sun, the shining reality of the physical world.” “Weaving a tale more often akin to a symphony than a story, her novels are rich with a zen-like sensitivity that leaves one quietly fulfilled, yet wanting more.”

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was an ordinary kid, got A’s in class, participated in every extra-curricular activity (except sports!). I was also a great reader with my eyes on the outside world. Our house was filled with magazines, such as Life and National Geographic, which fueled my imagination! My parents hoped I would have a conventional life, a family and children, but that just didn’t happen. They may have regretted all those magazines later!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.donstarnes.com/connie/
• Instagram: @conniekronlokken