Kathryn Casey

Kathryn Casey

Kathryn Casey at the 2009 Texas Book Festival
Occupation Crime writer, novelist
Nationality  United States
Period 1984-present
Genre Crime fiction
Subject True crime
Website
www.kathryncasey.com

Kathryn Casey is an American true crime writer, novelist and journalist. Author Ann Rule has called her "one of the best in the true crime genre."[1] She is best known for writing She Wanted It All, which recounts the case of Celeste Beard, who married an Austin multimillionaire only to convince her lesbian lover, Tracey Tarlton, to kill him. Casey's 11th book, Deliver Us, released January 2015 by HarperCollins, is based on murders along the Texas Killing Fields and Interstate 45.[2]

Early life and education

In 1980, Casey moved with her family to Texas. She attended the University of Houston and earned a degree in journalism.

Career

In 1984, Casey began writing as an intern at the now-defunct Houston City Magazine. She left two years later as a senior editor. Next, Casey worked for two years as editor of Ultra, a regional magazine geared toward wealthy Texans.

Casey then wrote for a national audience, with articles appearing in Ladies' Home Journal, where she was a contributing editor for 18 years, as well as More (magazine), TV Guide, Rolling Stone, Seventeen, Reader's Digest, and Texas Monthly. During her more than two decades as a magazine journalist, Casey interviewed celebrities, including movie, television, and recording stars, presidents and first ladies. She covered subjects that ranged from the Oklahoma City bombing, the aftermath of 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina, to infertility and the McCaughey Septuplets.

Many of Casey's articles examined sensational crimes. In the early 1990s, she turned one case, which was the subject of a Ladies' Home Journal article about a serial rapist attacking Houston-area women, into her first book, The Rapist's Wife. After its release, Casey moved away from magazine writing to concentrate on non-fiction, fact-based crime books.

Her book Shattered was included in True Crime Book Reviews Top 10 book awards for 2010.[3]

Casey's seventh true crime book covered the Matt Baker case in Waco, Texas, about the Baptist minister who was convicted of killing his wife and staging it to look like a suicide.[4] Baker, sentenced to 65 years, resides in the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, a Texas state prison. Cy-Fair Magazine, upon the July 2012 release of the book Deadly Little Secrets, covered the Baker case and others in a feature article about Casey.[5] The Houston Chronicle also covered the release of the book.[6] Deadly Little Secrets was the inspiration for the film Sins of the Preacher, which aired on the Lifetime television network in September 2013.[7]

Casey then turned to crime fiction. In 2009, Booklist, the publication of the American Library Association, named Casey's debut novel, Singularity, one of the "Best Crime Novel Debuts of 2009" on its Bestseller Lists.[8] The main character in her mystery series is Sarah Armstrong, a Texas Ranger and a criminal profiler. In Singularity, Armstrong travels across Texas hunting a deviant serial killer. Library Journal picked the third in the series, The Killing Storm, as a best book of 2010 in its mystery category.[9]

Casey was a co-founder of Women in Crime Ink, which has been described by the Wall Street Journal as "a blog worth reading."[10]

In July 2011, she wrote an article for Forbes Woman about new options available to authors with the advent of eBooks and self-publishing.[11]

Casey lives in Houston with her husband.

Appearances

In 1995, Casey appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss The Rapist's Wife along with the subject in the title, Linda Bergstrom. In the years since, Casey has appeared on Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen Network, Court TV, Biography, Nancy Grace, E! Network, Investigation Discovery and the A&E.

In October 2006, she appeared on The Montel Williams Show to discuss women who unknowingly dated wanted criminals.[12]

She's a regular speaker and panelist at book festivals and events, including the Texas Library Association convention, Southwest Louisiana Writer's Conference, Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend book conference, and the Texas Book Festival.[13]

Books

True Crime

Fiction series

References

  1. ↑ World Archipelago. "HarperCollins US". harpercollins.com.
  2. ↑ "True-life horror story". Houston Chronicle.
  3. ↑ "True Crime Book Reviews Awards Winners". truecrimebookreviews.com.
  4. ↑ "Baker's case grabs national attention". kxxv.com. 13 January 2010.
  5. ↑ "Cy-Fair author brings to light the dark world of real-life crimes of passion," Fall 2012
  6. ↑ True crime writer explores a shocking Texas murder - Houston Chronicle
  7. ↑ Local production "Sins of the Preacher" to air on Lifetime | Worcester MagWorcester Mag
  8. ↑ "Year's Best Crime Novels: 2009, by Bill Ott - Booklist Online". booklistonline.com.
  9. ↑ "That Page Was Not Found". libraryjournal.com.
  10. ↑ beckey bright (2 June 2009). "Blogs Worth Reading - WSJ". WSJ.
  11. ↑ Victoria Pynchon (24 July 2011). "True Crime Writer Ponders Career Change in eBook World". Forbes.
  12. ↑ The Montel Williams Show - Season 16, Episode 637: PRINCE CHARMING OR DANGEROUS CRIMINAL? - TV.com
  13. ↑ Kathryn Casey (29 January 2012). "Recharging the Creative Mind". Forbes.

External links