Author Kate Inglis is one of those people who you meet and never want to leave. I’d move in next door if she didn’t live on the opposite coast. But aside from being lovely, she’s a great author.

Her first book, The Dread Crew is an imaginative tale of filth, friendships and backwoods pirates. It’s the story of a boy, a crew of dirty, warty, natty, rude, pugnacious, revolting, disgusting pirates who show up demanding things from the villagers that they hoard.

The Dread Crew is one of those tales that starts in the woods when a mother is walking with her restless tot, home is still a ways away, and there’s nothing fueling the walk expect whatever story she can pull from the air. Anyone who’s a mom knows how this works, but few of those stories actually find their way to the published page.

As Kate says, “it occurred to me that writing something silly was highly speculative, a debatable spend of martial and mothering time. I shrugged. I kept it to myself because I thrive in the pressureless void of low expectations. I hadd 15,000 words before telling my husband–with my mouth full, behind my hand–that I was writing a novel. A three-year spell of insomnia was my groundswell. Getting published was an accident.”

Listen to my audio preview of the book: (MP3 6 MB should play with Google Reader)

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