Kathleen West

Kathleen West is a writer, teacher, reader, and semi-professional minivan driver. A life-long Minnesotan, she holds degrees from Macalester College and the University of Minnesota. She lives in Minneapolis with her hilarious husband, their two sporty sons, and an ill-behaved goldendoodle.

West's debut novel is Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I recently read and loved Unscripted by Nicole Kronzer. This YA gem arrives from Abrams on April 21st, and adult and teen readers of contemporary fiction will want to pick it up. Here’s what you’re getting into: Improv phenom Zelda Bailey-Cho arrives at her comedy summer camp with her boots laced and ready for action. She knows how the summer will unfold: she’ll make the Varsity improv team, dazzle in the end-of-summer showcase, and start down a certain path to SNL.

But almost immediately, things seem not-quite-as-she-imagined. First, there are only five girls of the 175 campers at Rocky Mountain Theater Arts, and their counselor is MIA. Ben, the handsome Varsity coach is definitely interested in Zelda, but perhaps for insidious reasons. And none of the improv rules Zelda’s memorized—she keeps her bible, The Scene Must Win by comedy legend and camp founder, Jane Lloyd, always on hand—seem to help her in the trickiest of the summer’s situations.

Lucky for Zelda, she’s got allies: the girls of the Gilda Radner cabin, her brother, a Junior Varsity camper, who loves through the distraction of his own budding romance, and the All-American boy scouts at the camp across the road.

Readers get both all the big themes: confidence, competition, misogyny and inequity and all the feels: friendship, self-reliance, and first love. I loved this!

Visit Kathleen West's website.

The Page 69 Test: Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes.

--Marshal Zeringue