Scrapbooking infiltrated the author’s life, too

Media General News Service
Published: April 29, 2008

Kathleen Reid’s phone rang nonstop on March 20, and congratulatory e-mails flooded her in-box. That morning, USA Today featured her new novel in its Book Buzz column. “A Page Out of Life” (Berkley, $14) is due out today.

The article, she said, “changed the whole interest level in me. It was my first big national press.” The piece resulted in inquiries from 60 to 70 media outlets about reviews, interviews and appearances.

“A Page Out of Life,” listed by amazon.com as a hot new release, centers on three women in the fictional city of Belloix (pronounced bell-wah), Ala., who become friends and find strength in each other and themselves through scrapbooking.

Ashley is a stressed-out mother of four who always needs 10 more minutes, schoolteacher Libby thought she would have a comfortable retirement until her son is involved in an Enron-esque scandal and Tara is a doctoral candidate who can’t find the right guy.

“Elements of my personality are in each of the characters,” Reid said one overcast afternoon in the wood-paneled third-floor office of her West End home where she writes. Scrapbooking supplies were arranged on an ottoman in front of a love seat.

“Tara is very meticulous and a huge lover of art, and that is definitely me,” said Reid, a former docent at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Reid is working on the sequel that will focus on Tina, a secondary character in “A Page Out of Life.” Tina is of Indian heritage, grew up in London and finds her way to Belloix as curator at the Belloix Museum.

Reid set “A Page Out of Life” in make-believe Belloix after discovering that it’s probably best that her novels don’t take place in actual cities. In her first novel, “Paris Match,” she made a comparison between Paris and a certain North Carolina city. Some Carolinians let her know their displeasure.

“I learned the hard way,” Reid said laughing. “Never set a book in a real city.”

Reid will celebrate the debut of “A Page Out of Life” tonight at a book-signing at Tabitha Geary’s shop of the same name on Libbie Avenue.

Geary, who offers professional memory organizing services, and Angela Allen, co-owner of scrapbooking retailer Memories Galore, helped Reid when she was researching the book.

Reid had made traditional, leather-bound albums and scrapbooks for family members over the years, but by the time she finished “A Page Out of Life,” she had become rather an expert on scrapbooking as we know it today.

“It has definitely been an odyssey,” she said. “Scrapbooking has infiltrated my life.”

Reid is scheduled to be in New York for a scrapbooking how-to segment on WABC Television on Saturday, National Scrapbooking Day. A talk about the business of scrapbooking on Fox Business Network’s “Money for Breakfast” on Friday is pending.

“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” is one of the shows that has expressed interest in hosting Reid. Reid made a scrapbook for DeGeneres, and the show is considering “A Page Out of Life” as an audience giveaway, she said.

Richmond has a strong community of writers, Reid said, and she has been encouraged by local authors such as Emyl Jenkins, Sharon Baldacci and Dean King. “Everyone has been so supportive,” she said. She calls Jenkins, author of several books on style and antiques, and a mystery writer, her mentor.

Jenkins and Baldacci joined scrapbooking entrepreneur Melody Ross of Chatterbox International and Debbie Haas, co-author of “Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul,” in endorsing “A Page Out of Life.”

“Twists and turns that keep readers turning pages,” said Jenkins. “I couldn’t put it down,” said Haas. “The sisterhood of scrapbooking and [the] passion-filled lives of the women in this book, will leave you wanting more.”