ABOUT KATIE ALLENIt's strange how I can sit down and effortlessly write fiction (well, occasionally it's effortless), the words flowing out of my brain faster than my fingers can type. On the other hand, when I try to write about myself…well, let's just say that I know exactly how many squares there are on my living room rug. And there're a lot. I don't know why it's so hard--I mean, I should know myself better than anyone, right? Better than any of my fictional characters, better than my family members or my friends--so why can't I write a good bio to save my life? For some reason, this question makes me think of my friend and long-ago roommate, Jane. She was a wild one, that Jane, bringing home a different guy every night. On weekends, my roommates and I would lounge around, nursing hangovers, and watch really bad TV, waiting to see who would wander out of Jane's room around noon. Once it was a professional football player. Another time, it was a fairly famous drummer. We'd all shift over on the couch to make room for the guy (or girl, or guy and girl during Jane's experimental stage) and offer the box of Cheez-its. |
 (Jennifer Miner Photography) |
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How does this relate to my bio, you ask? Well, in between the one-night stands, Jane did have long-term relationships. The only problem was that they were exactly the same guy every time. Since the men were all the same, and Jane was the same, her relationships would follow an identical course every. Single. Time. We tried to explain this to Jane, tried to get her to see that she was just looping around, following the same go-cart track over and over and over…but she absolutely refused to believe us. This guy was different, she'd insist. And we would pull out our hair with frustration, because he wasn't. He had the same floppy hair, the same innocent face, the same drinking problem, the same lack of a job, the same sense that what happened to him was always somebody else's fault, and his name was always Ryan. She did date a Brian once, which was awkward until we discovered that, if we mumbled, the names sounded close enough that we didn't have to keep track. No, really, I'm coming to a point here. Although it was incredibly frustrating to see Jane make the same man-mistakes again and again, I have to admit that we're all like that, including me. The hardest person for me to see clearly is myself. I'm sure that I have dozens of annoying habits and personality traits that are completely obvious to everyone else, but I'm completely, blissfully oblivious that they even exist. You might say that this is all a big excuse to not have to write a bio, and I say, "Well, duh." Here are a few facts to show that I did make a bit of an effort: big family, grew up in the Midwest, now lives in Denver, mechanical engineer, does gymnastics, rides horses, paints, likes immature movies and thinks almost everything is pretty damn funny. How's that? Okay, this is too hard. I'm going back to writing books. Take care, Katie Allen |
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