Kelly I. Hitchcock Makes You Laugh While She Steals Your Heart

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:25

Kelly I. Hitchcock is the author of Community Klepto, a finalist for the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Community Klepto is a humorous fiction novel about Anne, a 25-year-old sociopath who compulsively steals from people at her gym. Funny and insightful, the story explores deeper issues about settling into adulthood in our complex and ever-changing society. Full of hilarious commentary on gym rats, soccer moms, and other suburbanites, this book will keep you turning pages all the way through. Kirkus Reviews calls it a clever, endearing, and funny tale of 1 woman's missteps and her efforts to atone. Kelly is a graduate of Missouri State University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. She has seven-year-old identical twins and a full-time job. So writing and picking up LEGO are the only other things she can devote herself to. Kelly, it's great to have you on Author Express.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:01:23

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:26

I resonate so much with that. My kids are all older than that, but Lego is very much a thing in our house. So tell me, first of all, what's the most interesting thing about where you're from?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:01:39

Well, I grew up in a tiny town in the Ozarks, just north of where I went to college. And the most interesting thing about that town right now is that there is an active SBI investigation for an actual case of human cannibalism.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:54

Oh my gosh!

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:01:56

Yes. I moved from there to Kansas City and then here to Austin, And my family was all worried about my safety in the big city. And Austin certainly has issues, but I'm not getting murder-cannibalized here. So I think I'm good.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:08

I think you might have just won the award for the most interesting thing ever told on an Author Express. So you are from South Missouri then?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:02:19

Yes.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:20

Okay, well, that's really interesting. My sister went to Missouri State and I live in Columbia, so not too far from there.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:02:27

So you've probably heard of this Moon Valley massacre.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:31

Shockingly, I haven't. I have to admit that I have been insulating myself from the news lately.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:02:36

I hear you. I followed the case for a while and now I'm just like, you know what, I'm going to sit back and wait for the Netflix documentary because you know what's going to happen. I write fiction. I read fiction. I enjoy fiction. I do not enjoy true crime, especially when the true crimes happen, like near the creek where I used to swim as a kid.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:54

How small of a town was that?

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:57

About 2, 400 people. I think now it's closer to 4, 000, but it was like 2, 400 when I grew up there.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:04

Well, that's a lovely place. I grew up on a farm, you know, not exactly here, and swimming in the creek was a thing we did as well with the cattle. So tell us, I hope that the answer is not the same as the last 1, I'm sure it isn't, What was the last thing that made you laugh really, really hard?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:03:19

The last thing that made me laugh really, really hard. My kids have like, isms for things that they, you know how kids are, like we go to Union station and they call it the train castle and that just cracked me up. So we were in the car, I was taking them to school and they said exhaust that we smell in traffic, they'll be like, ugh, stinky car breath and it just makes me laugh every time. Because I'm like, that's a really like, that's a better term for it because it is stinky car breath. Yeah.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:53

And it gives the insult that you know, to tell people stop running your cars so much. Yeah, that's awesome. I love it. Tell us then, what is the best piece of advice that anybody's ever given to you?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:04:04

The best piece of advice that anyone has ever given to me? I think, like, I pretty much learned around, like, my teen years that any advice my dad gives me about finances to just basically do the opposite.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:22

That's very revealing, I have to admit.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:04:25

Sometimes you just have to learn by learning what advice to throw out. And I think that that's the same with writing, too. I've had people tell me, you need to write every day. You need to write first thing in the morning. You need to write late at night. Like, everybody will try to give you advice for what you should do as a writer, but I mean, I have a full-time job and 2 kids. I can't write every day. That doesn't work for me. Does that mean that I'm not gonna carve out time, that I should just give up and not carve out time a few days a week after they're in bed? No, that works for me. So that's what I'm gonna do.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:57

Yeah, that's true. I think people try to give guidelines because, well, sometimes people just try to say, well, clearly it worked for me, so it must work for everyone. What kind of full-time work do you do, if you don't mind me asking?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:05:09

I'm a software tester. I was a tech writer for 10 years. Before that, I had all kinds of freelance writing jobs, including 1 where I wrote people's online dating profiles for a while. But now I test software.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:23

We got to talk about this writing people's online dating. That is so interesting. I didn't even know that was a thing. Is that a job you get or is it just like something that people reach out to you to do and you charge them for it?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:05:37

Without revealing too much, there are like companies who do like full service concierge. We will set up your profile, we will set up dates for you. We will talk to people on your behalf. I did that for a while and I was like, I don't want to do this. I just want to do profiles. Just because, I mean, people don't like talking about themselves. And I have to say that like doing the online dating profile writing was a really great way for me to learn how to write my own bio, for me to distill my own book down to a two-paragraph blurb that goes on the back cover of a book. All experience is valuable.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:14

There's true writing advice for you. Go write dating profiles for somebody for a few years and that'll help you with your back cover blurb. I love that. Well, let's focus in a little bit on your book Community Klepto. It sounds hilarious and it's coming up on its first birthday, right?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:06:30

It is in June.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:32

Tell me what was the hardest thing about your book to write?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:06:36

The hardest thing was just finishing it because I actually finished it while I was in the hospital on bed rest and pregnant. It was hard to find time to finish it. It was hard to find time to edit it. But apart from that, it was just, you know, the constant questioning, is this something people are gonna like? Is this joke something people are gonna find funny? You know, you often vacillate as a writer between this is the best thing I've ever written and this is total crap. I should throw it out right now. There's not really 1 thing. It was all hard. Finishing was the hardest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:09

It's a really good use of bed rest, though, I have to say. I can't even imagine having to be on bed rest. That seems like at least a really good way to use the time.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:07:22

Yes, that's true.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:24

Okay, so I hate getting asked this question all the time, but this is such an interesting concept for a book that she's just a klepto at a gym. So where did this idea come from? I'm going to just hazard a wild guess that you are not a klepto yourself.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:07:39

I am not, although I do steal the occasional pint glass from a restaurant if I like it. Although now I'm old enough that I'll just buy 1. I don't have to take it. But in my 20s, I definitely like none of the pint glasses in my cabinet. Most of them are ones that I stole in my 20s. But I was living in Kansas City at the time and I was training for my first and last marathon. So I was spending a lot of time in the gym and I was just noticing people would leave their stuff like everywhere and not just like keys and jackets but like iPads and laptops and jewelry. Like people would just fold up their clothes in the locker room and put their pearls on top of their clothes and leave it there. And I'm like, these are very trusting people in suburban KC. Anybody could just walk up and take this stuff. So that's where I got the idea for the protagonist. And then, you know, as I'm in the gym, I'm seeing all these people, you know, the guys who lift their weights too loud, drop their weights too loud. The people who are very comfortable with their own nudity in the locker room. And I was like, I can't really talk about these people out loud, but I can in the voice of my character.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:54

That's hilarious. Well, I've read some of the reviews on it, and people all seem to be like, oh, my gosh, she totally nailed the culture of the community gym. So it sounds like a lot of fun.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:09:07

Thank you. I'm sure I will get a hater at some point, but so far so good.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:11

So let's talk a little bit about writing. What has surprised you most about your writing career? I mean, you've clearly done a whole lot of different things. So what's been surprising about this progression?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:09:24

I think the biggest surprise, like everything I write, I feel like it's either the best thing or the worst thing like we talked about. But people still pick it up because I wrote a book in my 20s, a book in my 30s, this book came out the week after I turned 40. So I've got 3 books out there, but there's been a decade between them, and people who read my first book are still coming back, remembering who I am and picking up my third book 20 years later. Hopefully the next 1 doesn't take me another 10 years to write.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:56

That's a super hopeful thing, though. I love hearing that because it's taking a lot longer for me to get my second book out after my first 1 than I wanted it to. And that's something I've been angsting a lot about. So that's really good to hear.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:10:09

It always takes longer than you think it will or that you want it to.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:14

See you've been my hope for today already. So tell me whose writing career do you think you've learned the most from?

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:10:23

Career-wise, I really admire Alison Stein. She's a novelist, but she also writes for The Lawn. So I've really enjoyed seeing her work evolve. She just earned out her Advance, which always, you know, like anytime you see an author earn their Advance, you just want to give them a big clap. So, you know, I mean, she doesn't have a million novels. She's not, you know, headlining at festivals, but she's, you know, doing the quiet work and putting herself out there and grinding away at being a journalist and writing, uh, you know, about TV and film and all that. And she's also a mom. So I see her, you know, taking her kid to school just like me. And it's good to see that you talk to a letter writer. So you know, but people who don't know, right, Like they assume that people who write books that that's their only means of compensation and that's not true for most people and that you know we have this perfect day where we write from 8 to 5 and the weather's always perfect and we're writing outside with our beautiful cup of tea and that's also not the case for most of us.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:40

I will say I do like to write outside. I do better work outside and it makes me happier as a human being, which is good. But I work from home while I'm running around with kids. So for me, it's more a matter of the time, like having the time to sit outside and read. But I just write anywhere.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:11:56

I do all my writing at night, so it would be dark. So writing outside would be difficult. Also, it feels like the service of the sun here, like 6 months out of the year. So writing outside is not exactly optimal.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:09

That's a different world. That's true that we circle back to the beginning and what works for some people versus what works for other people. Okay, so tell us where is the best place for people to find you.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:12:20

The best place for people to find me, you can find me anywhere. I'm Kelly Hitchcock on almost all social media. I have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, even TikTok, although I try not to fall too much into the trap of spending 3 hours on 30-second videos too often. And my website is kellyhitchcock.com, and you can find my book everywhere that books are sold.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:43

Great. Okay, so last thing for today, tell us what book or story inspires you the most.

Kelly Hitchcock [: 00:12:49

The books that has inspired me the most and really has changed my perspective the most, like and the most memorable way is We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. If you've not read it, it's a book about a girl who gets raped as a teenager, goes through all the shame and victim blaming, and it really extends to her whole family. All of them try to minimize what happened. It was the first book that I read that made me realize all the times that I had minimized inappropriate sexual contact or dismissed it and just how much that kind of behavior was normalized for me growing up. Like flirting with waitresses, catcalling, some women out jogging. Those were all things that I saw men do in my tiny Ozarks town and I just thought that that's how men were. So that's a total downer. It does have a happy ending, but it is a sad story and a beautiful story because Joyce Carol Oates is an amazingly talented, brilliant writer.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:46

Yeah, that's a great recommendation. Thanks for sharing it. And thanks for coming on Author Express today. We enjoyed talking to you.

Kelly Hitchcock

Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.