Published author and KSC alumna Angie Frazier discovered her passion and ability to transcend writing styles while attending KSC.
As a journalism major, Frazier started writing for The Equinox as a news reporter, was later appointed news editor and finally reached the position of executive editor.
Through her time as a reporter writing non-fiction, Frazier said she also always had a passion for fiction writing from her time reading fiction as a young adult. Frazier, formerly known as Angie Robie before getting married, said that interesting reading for the young adult demographic was scarce, which forced her to read more adult content.
Frazier laughed and said, “They would have kids books like [The] Babysitters Club; they’d have the classics, but they really didn’t have a young adult section when you went to the bookstore…I read what my parents were reading, so I was reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz…I was reading a lot of horror actually.”
Ironically, Frazier shared the same passion for horror and romance novels as she did children’s and young adult works.
Frazier went on to take what she had learned in a non-fiction field at The Equinox to a career in writing fiction.
Frazier explained that despite the genre of writing, the writer’s most important job is to tell a story and to structure it well.
Frazier said, “I remember a lot of journalism was about how you wanted to tell the story. What’s the structure of the story? What information do you give first? What do you lead into and then how do you wrap it up?…For anything, like an article or a story for a novel, you have to know structure.
Frazier added that in both fields of journalism and fiction writing, being able to lure an audience into reading what she is writing has always been important.
“You have to know what people want to read,” Frazier said. “When they pick up a news story, what are they going to be interested in? How are they going to be hooked? What is the hook? It’s all the same with writing a novel.”
Photo contributed by Erin Adams
Specifically, Frazier discovered her passion for pursuing a career as an author at the Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival and heard about the festival from its founder, director and KSC professor Dr. David White.
White founded the festival in 1977 and brought the nationally recognized Rhode’s children’s literature art gallery collection to campus in 1990.
White said he found his passion for children’s literature through one of his professors at the University of Virginia, and through his love and pursuit of children’s literature, ended up befriending many authors and illustrators in the New England area that helped springboard the festival to its current level of prestige.
White said it was through Frazier’s coverage of the festival for The Equinox that they discovered a mutual passion.
“I never had her as a student, that was the interesting thing,” White said. “She didn’t take the children’s literature course with me, but because she covered the festival, then she became interested, and that’s how she ended up in children’s books.”
White described Frazier as a “self-made person,” and said he read and enjoyed her first novel, which was a historical fantasy with intriguing detail and an alluring plot.
Frazier did however have a journalism professor, Dr. Rose Kundanis, for a class during her time at KSC. She said she enjoyed having her as a professor.
Kundanis said Frazier was a very good student and discussed her time at “Yankee Magazine” as a traveling reporter. Kundanis said, “She was really good at it (reporting for The Equinox). I remember…she makes things look easy.”
Kundanis added, “I knew that after graduation that she went to Yankee Magazine and that kind of impressed me because at that point, we hadn’t had a lot of people that went to Yankee next; they are a pretty prestigious magazine in our area.”
After publishing multiple novels, Frazier was recognized at the very festival she discovered her career: the KSC Children’s Literature Festival.
Frazier said, “Dr. White was recognizing people who had been at Keene State and have published children’s books… I felt it had really come full circle because I had really started to be interested in children’s literature at the literature festival and then however many years later, to be invited back and to be recognized as someone who had done that, I thought it was really special. I felt very honored that David asked me to go.”
Frazier has published multiple books including a historical fantasy entitled, “Everlasting,” a middle grade novel entitled, “The Midnight Tunnel: A Suzanna Snow Mystery.” She has also published a series of books under her pen name, Page Morgan.
For aspiring authors Frazier gave some advice.
Frazier said to “Keep writing” and to write for the love of writing.
“Love what your doing, keep writing and don’t worry about selling your project,” Frazier said. “When its ready it will sell. Keep loving the process of writing and never think that your done. Your going to be learning with every book that you write. It’s a constant process of learning.”
Today, Frazier is working on a few books, including an adult romance novel, a contemporary novel targeted for middle grade children and a young adult story Frazier described as a “twisted” thriller.
Nick Tocco can be contacted at ntocco@kscequinox.com
