Meet Katie Shands

From the moment I read the first line in Katie Shands contemporary fiction, Finding Franklin, I was hooked on the lyrical prose and the tone, which steeped me with the quaint and quirky flavor of the South. I hope you’ll be as taken with her writing as I am.

So, Katie, tell us what led you to be the writer you are today:

Before I was a writer, I was a reader. I’ve always had a hunger for books, and that innate appetite for words and story naturally led me to writing. I was never particularly eloquent in speech, but writing gave me a voice in the world. At a very early age, the pen became my mouthpiece: When I was hurt, I wrote letters in lieu of face-to-face confrontations. When I was angry, I vented in my journal. And when I was anything else, I wrote stories.

Fiction was my true passion, but journalism was where I first landed. In high school and college, I wrote for the school newspapers. I studied Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and interned at WBIR, a broadcast news station in Knoxville. That internship led to a full-time position as a media tech. I was responsible for editing video, writing for the website, and various other technical jobs.

After a few months, I was promoted to producer of the weekend newscasts, the 10 and 11 p.m. weeknight newscasts, and Newsmakers, a weekly political show. During my years as a journalist, writing became work rather than my outlet. A career in broadcast news is quite demanding, and in my off-hours, I didn’t have the energy or desire to write. I’d emptied myself at the news station and had no reserves left.

When my husband and I started a family, we decided I would stay home to raise our children. Writing became a creative space again. I began to blog, journal, and dabble in fiction. My computer held countless, unfinished novels, and after we moved to Franklin, Tennessee, I completed my first manuscript.

Tell us what inspired that manuscript, the characters that live on its pages, and the core of the story:

Finding Franklin is my love story to a town that continues to inspire me. The historic homes, the distinctly Southern flavor, the sense of community that evokes bygone days—Franklin encapsulates so much I hold dear. During my first drive down Main Street, I resolved to write a novel set in this town.

One of my main characters restores a historic home on West Main, which I loosely based on the Green-Moore House. I also sprinkled local shops and restaurants onto the pages—Franklin residents and visitors alike have enjoyed the real-life references. When fiction is anchored in reality, authenticity infuses the story, and that’s one of my prime goals as a writer. Authenticity.

Authenticity is not my ultimate goal though. First and foremost, I’m a Christian and believe my writing should glorify God. He needs to be at the core of any story I tell. In Finding Franklin, I explored the age-old question of why God allows bad things to happen. This issue of how to reconcile a loving God with all the heartache in the world has resurfaced at every stage of my faith. I know other believers struggle with this as well.

The resulting novel was a faith-based story about a woman who was abandoned as an infant on a doorstep in Franklin and returns to solve the mystery of her birth. The manuscript took about a year to finish, and then I entered it in the Janice Keck Literary Awards, a contest sponsored by the Williamson County Public Library. The prize was a complete publishing package.

Finding Franklin won the fiction division and was published under the library’s imprint “Academy Park Press.” It’s available for purchase at KatieShands.com, Landmark Booksellers in downtown Franklin, and Parnassus in Green Hills.

I know you’re working on another book…

I recently completed the first draft of my second novel A Song in the Night, which is set in Franklin from 1959 to 1960. Since the late twentieth century, the town has seen tremendous growth and change. Many people would be surprised to learn that once upon a time, Franklin was a farming community. Farmers and their families came to town on Saturdays to do their business. Hogs escaped from the auction barn and ran loose in the square. A chicken truck wrecked on its way into town, feathers floated above Main Street for the better part of the day, and according to long-time residents, everyone had fried chicken for supper that night.

People talk about “Old Franklin” with such nostalgia that it has taken on a mythic quality, not unlike the lost city of Atlantis or Camelot. I felt compelled to recapture that place in time. I chose 1959 to 1960 because of the social climate—the civil rights movement was gaining momentum in nearby Nashville, and I wanted to explore how those changes might have affected a small town like Franklin.

After extensive research, A Song in the Night took form. Though set in a real time and place, the main plot of the novel is fiction. It tells the story of Ruthie Mercer as she comes of age in the Jim Crow South. Following the unexpected death of her father and her mama’s subsequent breakdown, seven-year-old Ruthie and her mama move in with relatives in Franklin, which remains largely untouched by the civil rights movement heating up in Nashville. But when a black janitor at Ruthie’s school becomes embroiled in a scandal, divisions form in the town that eventually erupt into violence.

Ruthie must come to terms with her own role in this man’s downfall while also dealing with her mama’s emotional unravelling. As her eyes are opened to ugly truths, including a secret her mama has kept for a decade, Ruthie must learn to navigate a world where questions of race, tolerance, and morality don’t always have black and white answers.

You mentioned a husband and children earlier. Share a little about them and what you enjoy doing aside from writing:

Daniel and I will celebrate our twelfth wedding anniversary in May. I met him in college, and we’ve been together ever since. He works as a Systems Engineer for Pure Storage. We have four kids: Nora (8), Ellis (6), Lillian (4), and Oliver (14 months). My hobbies include writing, reading, running, history, organizing, and crafting. I also love classic rock music and chocolate, preferably in the form of a cookie.

You can connect with Katie via her website (where you can purchase Finding Franklin), Facebook or Instagram. For a direct link to purchase her book, click here.

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