NG: Welcome, Kelly. Thanks for joining us this month! First, my favorite question. What books have inspired you as a writer? How?

KB: Hi Nancy and Readers! My reading tastes vary from fantasies like Lord of the Rings to thrillers by Tosca Lee, Hank Philippi Ryan, and Alex Kava, to complicated sagas like Outlander, and mysteries by Sue Grafton. My writing inspiration is Janet Evanovich for her wacky humor, Diane Mott Davidson for her delicious recipes, and countless mystery series for teaching me about murder, mayhem, and solving puzzles in creative ways.

NG: You write the Cassandra Sato mystery series about an amateur sleuth who solves mysteries on a fictional college campus. Tell us a bit about Cassandra’s latest adventure.

KB: The first three books follow Cassandra’s first semester at Morton College, where her Vice President of Student Affairs dream job hasn’t turned out quite how she expected. On the plus side, Cassandra, reunited with an old friend, juggles a couple of potential romances, and makes a positive impact on the students she is charged with mentoring. Weigh that against the dead body/campus emergency count, an adopted dog with an attitude, and figuring out how to dress in Nebraska during the winter. Cassandra often wonders if she made the right choice to leave her home in Hawaii. Sometimes it’s better not to ponder that too deeply, right? Cassandra is smart, witty, and anyone who knows academia will feel right at home.

        Cassandra Sato Amazon Series Link

NG: You also write children’s books about a deaf dog. What do you hope children take away from those books? What is it like to work with your sister as the illustrator of the Duke the Deaf Dog series? Do you have a favorite Duke book? Why?

KB: Each book has a message for kids, and parents or educators. In Never Mind, the takeaway is that everyone deserves to be included in conversations. How many times do we tell people “never mind” when they ask us to repeat ourselves? We rarely stop to think how that feels to the person who’s missing out on the action. It’s a simple lesson that kids of all ages can learn.

My sister is so talented that I loved working with her to develop Duke the Deaf Dog as an adorable, relatable character. She adds details like the newspaper hats we used to fold as kids, or the cute little worm kids enjoy finding on some pages.

Every time we finish a new book, that one becomes my new favorite! We just finished a Kickstarter campaign taking orders for Sometimes I Like the Quiet. Kids who are deaf and hard-of-hearing work really hard all day listening with their eyes and ears. Adults often aren’t aware that the kids need quiet breaks throughout the day to rest their exhausted brains.

I’m super passionate about young kids learning some ASL signs from my books, workbooks, and videos so they can communicate with their classmates who use ASL. I don’t want anyone to be left out. You can still order signed copies of the latest Duke book from Kickstarter before they are available to the public on retailers.   Kickstarter Link

NG: You are also an American Sign Language Interpreter. What kind of training does it take to become a qualified ASL interpreter?

KB: I get asked this question frequently, and I’d love to tell you because we need young interpreters in our field. The first step is becoming fluent in ASL by taking classes (preferably from a Deaf teacher) and attending events with the Deaf community to learn the slang and nuances of the language. Interpreting is a separate, complicated task of switching back and forth between the languages to understand the meaning of the message and convey it accurately. Usually, students earn a college degree in interpreting either in person or online. Then you have to pass a proficiency test and get a state license. You can see the process takes years of hard work. For me, the benefit has been the great relationships I’ve developed with members of the Deaf community over the years.

NG: How do you come up with such great book titles as Death by Dissertation (Cassandra Sato academic mystery) and Farts Make Noise (Duke, the Deaf Dog children’s book).

KB: The punny titles are one of my favorite things about cozy mysteries! I’ve had a great time brainstorming ideas for my books and short stories. Death by Dissertation just came to me during the early NaNoWriMo drafting of the book. When I got stuck coming up with titles for the third and fourth books, I turned to a writing group we are both members of: the Sisters in Crime Guppy Chapter! Those creative title experts helped me decide on Dead of Winter Break (book #3) and Death 101: Extra Credit (book #4).

The idea for Farts Make Noise came from a funny thing that happened between two of my coworkers. One is hearing, and the other is Deaf. My hearing coworker had a virus (this was long before COVID) and she lost her sense of smell for several years. One day my coworkers were sitting next to each other chatting. My Deaf coworker is a funny guy who likes to crack jokes at work. He signed, “Haha! I just farted, but you can’t smell, so you didn’t know that I farted.”

My other coworker told him, “No, I didn’t smell anything, but I heard it.”

They both laughed so hard because he didn’t realize his fart was loud enough to hear! The title definitely gets the attention of anyone who loves potty humor!

  Amazon Book Link

NG: You are on the staff of the University of Nebraska—whew, you are one busy lady—tell us about your work there.

KB: I interpret for students, faculty, and staff who attend or work at the university. In twenty-plus years of experience, I’ve interpreted for eighteen different majors! I attend classes with the deaf students and overhear both the most inspiring and the most inane professors you could imagine. At faculty meetings, I’ve seen the jockeying for a position that happens on a daily basis. The most jaw-dropping dialogue in my books are often exact quotes I’ve overheard people say in real life.

Setting the Cassandra Sato mysteries on a fictional college campus allows me to include lots of real-life experiences into the stories. Often, I’ll sit with my laptop and earbuds at the student center and people watch or collect snippets for my work in progress. (Let’s keep that our little secret, okay?)

NG: Your wonderful blog contains recipes, articles for deaf families, book club suggestions and mystery author interviews. Would you share a link to one of your favorite recipes?

KB: Thank you! I love cooking and baking so it’s fun sharing those recipes on the blog. One of my family’s all-time favorite recipes is for Apple Cinnamon Chip Scones, a basic scone recipe that lets you substitute different flavored chips and nuts. This combination is the BEST! I hope your readers try it.

https://kellybrakenhoff.com/healthy-apple-cinnamon-chip-scones/

NG: Tell us something about yourself that few people know.

KB: To keep in shape for our travel adventures and chasing grandkids, I run the kind of 10K fun runs that serve beer or wine at the end! I’m not a natural born runner, but training for runs is a great opportunity to quiet my busy mind and brainstorm new methods of murder and mayhem in my stories. If you want to read a funny story about one of my races gone bad, I wrote a blog post about it here. https://kellybrakenhoff.com/the-early-bird-gets-the-mimosa/

I enjoyed chatting with you. Thanks for having me, Nancy!

NG: Thank you, Kelly! It’s been a pleasure.