About

About Barbara W. Klaser

I’m a blogger, book lover, novelist, editor, lifelong journal keeper, knitter and lots of other things.

I’m the owner of Mystery of a Shrinking Violet as well as a few other blogs. (See my Other Blogs page.)

The English language has been the basis of many fulfilling endeavors in my life. I was one of those weird kids who actually enjoyed diagramming sentences. With my love of books and stories, as well as the English language, and as someone who often has my head in the clouds, writing fiction seemed a natural fit. But first I had to make a living, so I spent over two decades in the world of technical manuals, while I pursued fiction writing in my spare time.

About Mystery of a Shrinking Violet

This is an updated and revived version of a blog by the same name that I kept regularly between mid-2004 and and the end of 2009. I intended it as an author blog, but really it was more of a personal blog with a little about books and writing. After 2009, my posts there dwindled for a time and then stopped. At the time, I had the impression that blogging was becoming obsolete, due to the advent of social media, primarily Facebook. Social media seemed to take over the internet, and people even seemed to abandon communicating by email, at least for personal uses, and gave up forums as well, in favor of Facebook and Twitter. But I’ve missed blogging ever since. I did it at first grudgingly, as something I was told I needed to do as an aspiring writer. But it grew on me, and I’ve realized recently that I missed it. Then I realized that I wanted to have a focused books and writing blog, and not only that, I wanted to have another focused knitting blog, and … well, this idea grew until I realized I wanted a cluster of blogs, each focused on a topic important to me. I also explored a little and realized that in fact blogging isn’t dead. It’s very much alive, and I still prefer it to social media. So here we are. Some of my posts from my older blog will be included here,  but that will happen gradually as I check them for broken links and information that needs updating. Those will be either backdated or updated as new posts, if they seem to fit my narrower focus for this newer blog.

So, Mystery of a Shrinking Violet is reborn, and will focus primarily on books I read, writing (mostly fiction writing), books about writing, and some writing niches I’m currently interested in, which for all I know may shift and change over time. I find that I’m still mostly interested in writing mystery with romance.

I’m an introvert with a tendency toward shyness, so the name of the blog still seems to fit.

Welcome, and I hope you’ll comment and join in the fun.

Comments Welcome!

If you’re a blogger or have a website, feel free to add that link to your comment.

Barbara W. Klaser
October 23, 2022