Freshfiction-Kay Hooper

Kay Hooper

About the Author

Kay Hooper was born in California, in an air force base hospital since her father was stationed there at the time. The family moved back to North Carolina shortly afterward, so she was raised and went to school there. The oldest of three children, Kay has a brother two years younger and a sister seven years younger. Her father (now retired) and brother are builders who own a highly respected construction company, and her mother worked for many years in personnel management before becoming Kay's personal assistant, a position she held until her untimely death in March 2002. Kay's sister Linda works as her Business Manager, Events Coordinator, and Regional Publicist.

Kay graduated from East Rutherford High School and attended Isothermal Community College — where she quickly discovered that business classes did not in any way enthrall her. Switching to more involving courses such as history, science, and literature, she also began to concentrate on writing, which had been a longtime interest. Very quickly hooked, she asked for a Christmas typewriter and began seriously working on her first novel. That book, a Regency romance titled Lady Thief, sold to Dell Publishing in 1980. She has since published more than 60 novels and four novellas

Kay is single and lives in a very small town in North Carolina, not far from her father and siblings. Deigning to live with her are a flock of cats with various personalities who all like sleeping on manuscripts and whatever research happens to be spread across Kay's desk, and three tolerant dogs who don't mind cats washing their faces or eating out of their bowls.

Kay also fosters cats and kittens for the Community Pet Center, a non-profit rescue organization on whose board she served for several years.