If you don't want to write what you know, be prepared to research....

I became a writer by deliberately doing everything wrong. Sometimes that works.

A case in point. Although my personal and professional travels have taken me to London, New York, Chicago, Miami, and beyond, I'm proudly Canadian. Yet both Guns and Roses and The Man Who Got Away are about Chicago gangsters who figured prominently in one of the most useless social experiments to ever hit the United States. I'm also a woman writer whose true crime works are not about Lizzie Borden, Winnie Ruth Judd, or Aileen Wuornos, but Dean O'Banion and Bugs Moran, who blocked Al Capone's rise to power and suffered as a result. If you think that should not matter in today's enlightened age, drop me a line and I'll send you copies of emails that, although complimentary about the books, still include comments to the effect of "What's a young lady like you doing writing about Chicago gangsters?"

I believe that if you are prepared to thoroughly research your topic, in most cases you do not have to represent the population segment that you write about. Harold Schechter and Ann Rule have written eye-opening and perceptive books about the world's worst serial killers, but I seriously doubt that they murdered anyone first. And don't be deterred by anyone who questions your ability to competently tackle a subject based your residence or origins. One Chicago writer (who happens to be a good friend!) gently advised me that Chicago writers considered non-residents writing about the city's history to be akin to a "Norwegian trying to write an Italian cookbook." Cute analogy but completely irrelevant. In my own circumstance, I wrote about incidents that took place so far back in time that being a born and bred Chicagoan would have presented no advantage whatsoever.... unless I was born in 1890 something. And THAT advantage would bring its own problems, like, uh, death?

Know intrigues you, know how to research, and keep writing.

-Rose Keefe