American Novelist visits students at Valencia Community College

By Andy Concepcion

ORLANDO, Fla. — Accomplished Chick Lit writer, Kristin Harmel, visited Valencia’s west campus to speak to students about her books which was followed by a “Q and A” session, July 6.

While Harmel spoke of her Journalism experience, she explained that the competitive nature of it pushed her towards writing books.

“Trying to be the best stressed me out,” said Harmel. “Being away from that kind of stuff gives me the freedom to work the way I want.”

Since her first book, “How to Sleep with a Movie Star”, was released in 2006, she has had four of her other stories published. During the “Q and A” she answered questions about how she develops her characters and gave her opinion on writer’s block.

“I usually take three to four weeks to develop a character,” said Harmel. “I don’t believe in writers block if you have an outline”.

Going more into detail about her character development, Harmel admitted that she had put two real life people into one of her novels.

“Two guys who cheated on me made a brief appearance in one of my stories,” said Harmel. “It’s stupid to cheat on an author,” she said jokingly.

Out of all four of her novels, Harmel says that “The Art of French Kissing” is her personal favorite. She said the main character’s story was inspired by her personal life while living in Paris.

“The summer at Paris changed me,” Harmel said. “A lot of what she went through in the story is what I went through”.

For more information on Kristin Harmel and her books, visit www.kristinharmel.com.