Blogs & Interviews

Author Interview: Kelly Oliver
Mystery Manon — March 2024
Today’s featured author is Kelly Oliver: mystery author, philosophy professor, and president of Sisters in Crime. We’re celebrating her latest release, Murder in Moscow, which is part of her historical Fiona Figg & Kitty Lane mystery series.
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A Word With Kelly Oliver
Drus Book Musing — January 2024
Why do you write the genre that you write? That’s a bit of a story! In my day job, I’m a philosophy professor. About eight years ago, I had a sabbatical and I wanted to write a novel (don’t tell Vanderbilt). Trouble was, I’d only written nonfiction and scholarly stuff, never fiction.
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Get to Know Fredrick Fredricks
Drus Book Musing — August 2023
Fredrick sits down for a question-and-answer session with Dru’s Book Musings so that we can get to know him better.
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A Wicked Welcome to Kelly Oliver!
Wicked Authors — July 2023
I’m thrilled to welcome Kelly Oliver to the blog today! Kelly serves as the vice president/incoming president of Sisters in Crime, and we’ve worked together closely during the past year. In addition to her service to the community, Kelly is a wonderful and prolific writer.
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ThisOrThatAuthor
Heather Weidner — June 2023
I’d like to welcome the fabulous Kelly Oliver to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!
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Sunday Tea with V and Kelly Oliver
Tea with V Podcast — May 2023
This Sunday, V chats with Kelly Oliver, author of the Fiona Figg Mysteries, about Mata Hari, women and their roles throughout history, writing what you don’t know about, not liking history but becoming an author of historical novels, becoming a bestselling author from a household of non-readers, and their mutual love of cats.
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Mystery Author Kelly Oliver: Fiction is the Best Revenge!
Miss Demeanors — May 2022
What first inspired you to begin writing mysteries? My “day job” is philosophy professor at Vanderbilt, so my career has been in “publish or perish” mode for decades. I’ve published a lot of scholarly stuff and nonfiction.
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A Talk With Author Kelly Oliver
The Vintage Woman — 2022
Your background in the American Northwest sounds like a generational novel in itself! Please tell us more about your professional journey. Actually, my interest in writing fiction comes from a desire to explore this generational story. I would love to write the history of my family in the Northwest, which involves murders, betrayals, blood and sweat, and a love and respect for the land.
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Interview with Author Kelly Oliver
HJ Book Blog — January 2022
Jessica James Mysteries started out based on my own experience in grad school. (No, I didn’t murder my dissertation advisor!). I came from a family of loggers in Idaho and Montana, and I was a fish-out-of-water at the fancy PhD program “back east” as my mom called it.
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Bestselling Author Kelly Oliver Unleashes Her New Book
The Vistek, January 2021
Kelly Oliver is a well-known force in the literary world, with her oh so thrilling books have roared on to the bestseller list time after time me, and her new book High Treason at the Grand Hotel: A Fiona Figg Mystery is set to do the same.
Bestselling Author Kelly Oliver opens up about her new book
Time Business News, January 2021
When it comes to creating phenomenal, intriguing and, yes bestselling stories, Kelly Oliver, hits the mark each and every time, with her books consistently topping the bestseller list.
Bestselling author Kelly Oliver talks new book, and future plans
Digital Journal, January 2021
Bestselling author Kelly Oliver chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about her book High Treason at the Grand Hotel: A Fiona Figg Mystery
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked
Killer Nashville Blog, July 2019
In the past two years, I’ve learned that writing fiction is a lot like combing a matted Persian cat. It takes a lot of patience and determination. And sometimes the cat bites back…

Mysteries Featuring Strong Women Protagonists
Blog post at Independent Publisher, December 2017
With women writers and so many women readers, times have changed. Tough women of crime fiction such as Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, and Patricia Cornwell’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta do what the men did, only wearing heels.

Fiction Is the Best Revenge
Blog post at Career Authors, November 2017
As a painfully shy child growing up with a short-fused mother, I learned early on that the question “what do you want?” was a test of how well I could guess what she wanted me to want. I developed interpretation skills, watching her body language and verbal cues, to discern what it was that she wanted. As a consequence, when I grew up, I never knew what I wanted, or if I had any desires of my own.

You’ve Come a Long Way Baby; Feminist Crime Fiction
Blog post at Crimespree Magazine, May 2017
Remember the gumshoe lured into a trap by a beguiling femme fatale? If he was lucky, he survived and went on to marry the good girl. This was the staple of classic crime fiction and Hollywood film noir.

Interview at Cats, Books, and…More Cats!
November 2016
I grew up in the Northwest, Montana, Idaho, and Washington states. My maternal grandfather was a forest ranger committed to saving the trees, and my paternal grandfather was a logger hell bent on cutting them down.

Hunting Girls Presentation
C-Span at the Southern Festival of Books, October 2016
Katniss Aberdeen from The Hunger Games, Bella Swan, Twilight, and other strong and resourceful characters have decimated the fairy tale archetype of the helpless girl wanting to be rescued. Giving as good as they get, these young women access reserves of aggression to liberate themselves. The problem is that that they still get and as much or more than they give.

Dealing With Serous Issues with Humor and Wit
Blog post at Women Writers, Women’s Books, September 2016
They didn’t see how rape could ever be funny. Obviously, I agree. Rape can never be funny. Books, on the other hand (even books that take on serious topics like rape), can be funny. In fact, humor often helps us deal with difficult subjects that might be too hard to face without it.

Hunting Girls
Interview at Interchange Radio, August 2016
“Recently people have been made aware of [Brock Turner’s] trial and the fact that he was sentenced to only six months and will probably get out in three months or less. And then the very moving letter that was written by the rape survivor that I think had a powerful effect on a lot of people seeing how this really does affect a woman’s life.”

“Area author signs new mystery novel Saturday”
Article at The Sandpoint Reader, August 2016
“When shaping her own female protagonist, she found many admirable qualities in the women of pop fiction but wanted to see larger casts of diverse female characters support and complement one another.”

“Kelly Oliver’s Wolf
Blog post at My Book the Movie, July 2016
Kelly shares her dream cast for Wolf.

Literary Diva Presents: Kelly Oliver!
Interview at Blog Talk Radio, July 2016
“Actually my parents wanted me to go to law school and study accounting and, you know, do a profession where I actually could support myself. But I tried and I found accounting too boring and I just couldn’t do it. Luckily I’ve been able to support myself as a philosophy professor.”

“The One Person I’ve Ever Imagined Killing”
Crimespree Magazine, July 2016
“There’s only one person I’ve ever imagined killing. I’d lay awake fantasizing about stalking his jogging route, hiding in a dark alley in my beat-up Chevy Vega, then running him over.”

Suspense Radio Inside Edition
Interview at Blog Talk Radio, July 2016
“Jessica has kind of a smart mouth and is queen of the one-line comeback.”

“A Conversation with Mystery Novelist Kelly Oliver”
Interview with Lance Wright at Omnimystery News, June 2016
“With more wit than grace, the cowgirl philosopher stumbles into murder mysteries, human trafficking, rape drugs, art scams, and corporate corruption. She’s funny and witty, the queen of one-line come backs, and she can quote Nietzsche.”

“Behind the story of Wolf with Kelly Oliver”
Interview with Terry Ambrose, June 2016
“She swims against the current in an ocean of men,” said Oliver. “I plead the fifth on which parts of the novel are true and which are made-up.”

Author Interview—Kelly Oliver
Interview at The Pulp and Mystery Shelf, June 2016
“At first, I thought I’d never be able to write fiction because I’d always been too much of a straight shooter in my non-fiction writing. Then I realized, the reason I was attracted to philosophy in the first place was it was like being a detective, reading confusing stuff and trying to piece together its meaning from various clues—like trying to figure out the meaning of life!”