I was born Kali Jo White on January 20th, 1975, which makes me an Aquarius or a Capricorn, depending on the source of the horoscope. Another anomaly about me: I lived in the same house from birth until I left for college at the age of 18. I am the proud daughter of second generation dairy farmers and grew up on my family’s large farm outside a southern Iowa town called Bloomfield (known for it’s beautiful courthouse.) What may seem to some like a small life is actually the source of everything I am and have become today. Those hard-working, down-to-earth, farm kid sensibilities seem to have served me well in my endeavors.
My parents regularly delight in telling people that I started talking and telling stories at an abnormally early age and haven’t shut up since. I’ve also always been a voracious, fast reader. Stories, it seems, were with me in the womb. My path to writing was not a direct one, though. I was a fabulously average student in school and went on to become equally average student in college. A bit indecisive in my university years, I attended Indian Hills Community College (liberal arts), the University of Northern Iowa (a special education major for one term), Des Moines Area Community College (can’t even remember what classes I took there), and finally Upper Iowa University (Bachelor’s in Human Services/Psychology.) I married a handsome Dutch boy at the ripe old age of 21 (thus creating one of the most difficult names on the planet to pronounce, Kali VanBaale. It’s kal-ee, like “rally,” and van-ball-ee, like well, nothing), and then went to work as a county case manager for mentally disabled adults and children post-graduation.
Over the years, I took many creative writing classes in school, pecked away at one bad story after another, and harbored a secret dream of publishing a novel some day. Finally, with the birth of my first child in 1999, I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom and make a real go at the writing thing in my “spare” time. (My husband must’ve been crazy. Sure honey, let’s give up your salary so you can write a book…)
Fast-forward six years. Numerous writer’s groups, retreats, workshops and classes, two failed books, a pile of rejections and buckets of frustrated tears later, I finally got my big break in 2005 when I submitted my novel to a contest and won. And here I am today. My second novel, a 1960’s family farm saga entitled MERCY ROAD, is in the trusted hands of my New York agent as she works to find it a home with an east coast publisher. In the meantime, I’ve already started a third.
I live on an acreage outside Des Moines with my husband and three children—two boys and a girl who all give me equal amounts of pure grief and pure joy. I spend most of my workdays at a laptop in my office, surrounded by my beloved books, with a view of my neighbor’s horse ranch just across the road. Above the door, where I can see it from my desk as I write, I painted the wise words of Michelangelo:
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
Words to live, and write by, indeed.
My fantastic writing community:
WAUKEE WRITERS Back L-R: Chantal Corcoran, Wendy DelSol, Murl Pace, Dawn Mooradian, Me, Kimberly Stuart
PUBLISHED AUTHORS LAISON (PAL) L-R: Mike Manno, Sharelle Moranville, Wendy DelSol, Me, Eileen Boggess, Becky Janni, Jan Blazanin, Kimberly Stuart