Kate Flora: Thirty-five years ago, when my second son was born, I decided to quit my job and stay home for a few years with my boys. I immediately had the terrified thought, But I’ve always worked. Now what will I do? Then I thought, I’ve always wanted to write. Maybe it is something I can do while the boys nap. Naive thought. My boys were not nappers. It was hard to find those spaces where it was quiet enough to write. But I started a novel, and it sent me on the course I am still on today.

For nearly ten of those first writing years, I toiled quietly at my desk, all of the storytelling happening between me and my characters on the page. That changed when my first Thea Kozak mystery, Chosen for Death, was published. As readers began to discover Thea, and her family, and…