Author Appreciation - Carolyn Keene

So the first author I'm going to discuss this week..is kind of an odd choice considering she doesn't exactly exist. Let me go back a little and give some personal details on why this is my choice before we move on.

Even as a child I was a voracious reader. I was using all my allowance, birthday monies, etc. towards books. While there were several books of the Sweet Valley variety, peppered with Babysitters Club, my main brain food of choice were Nancy Drew books. My mom had started me on the Bobbsey Twins and Trixie Belden books and I graduated to Nancy, Bess, George and of course Ned. I just couldn't get enough of Nancy and her adventures. The best? When she teamed up with the Hardy Boys! God I was in heaven with those books. Double the size, double the "crime" fighters, double the action and hi-jinx!

While I don't write mysteries, a certain aspect of the writing style has stuck with me in my own endeavors. I am speaking of the end of chapter cliff hangers. They are the reason I would breeze through the books so quickly. I'd HAVE to keep reading to see what happened. Just one more chapter would turn into two and three and four! I loved the anticipation of that and I try to put it into my own writing.

So enough of skipping down memory lane. Let me explain Carolyn Keene for those who don't know. There kind of is no Carolyne Keene (hence why it might seem odd for "her" to be my choice). Ms. Keene is actually a pseudonym for the ghostwriters who penned the many Nancy Drew books. I had no idea growing up that there were such things as ghostwriters and pen names, etc., but I still love that all the different authors stuck to the format and kept Nancy pretty much the same for me.

Therefore, my hat's off today to the many different authors posing as Carolyn Keene. For helping nurture my love of reading, for the cliff hangers that kept me up at night with a flashlight and for fooling me into thinking there was only one person writing all those books!