More about Kevin McNamee

Welcome back for part two about Kevin McNamee. I wish I had been the interviewer for the following interview continued from Presenting Kevin McNamee, but I wasn't. Therefore, I've enjoyed it as much as anyone.

What is your most precious memory?

Recently, I came home from work and I was completely exhausted.My four year old daughter wanted me to play our usual games, tag, hide and seek, and some other game of her own creation which involves me chasing her while she’s wearing a plastic firefighter’s helmet and carrying a beach ball.

I was tired and really wanted no part of it. But my daughter was insistent, and I found myself losing patience, and I yelled at her.

She climbed up on the couch, threw her arms around me and said, “I love you Daddy. Now you can be so happy.”

I melted.

What is your most embarrassing memory?

My most precious memory and my most embarrassing memory are the same, when I think of how selfish I was being.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing with your life?

Right now, I still have a day job. Unfortunately, writing hasn’t been my means to self-sufficiency yet. I’m still trying to find that balance between work/family/writing/everything else. It’s a challenging juggling act, but so far, I’ve been able to keep all the balls in the air.

In two paragraphs or less write your obituary.

Sorry, I’m much too busy trying to live my life to worry about how my obituary will read. My life, like some of my writing is still a work in progress.

Can you describe the time you realized you were indeed a “real” writer?

Somewhere along the way, I stopped doubting my ability. A rejection of my manuscript ceased to be a rejection of myself. A rejection letter became an opportunity to send my manuscript somewhere else.

Comments and criticism became opportunities to strengthen my story, revise something unworkable, or something to ignore altogether if it didn’t fit with my vision of the story.

I was able to refer to myself as a writer without feeling self conscious and … oh yeah, someone was willing to pay me for what I wrote.

What is going on with your writing these days?

Right now, I have several stories in various stages of completion, one story that has been finalized and critiqued and needs a final revision, and a few that are finished and have been sent out to various publishers.

What are your future goals for your writing?

I’ve been focusing primarily on picture books and I would like to branch out to middle readers and Young Adult novels.

I have two middle readers in various stages of completion.


Kevin, thanks for posting that interview so that I was able to access and share it with my readers.

We'll watch for the release of your book The Sister Exchange, which I understand should come out soon.

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