Photo by Jim Ferreira
Kelli Stanley likes
fog, which is a good thing because she lives in San Francisco.
In addition to writing Roman Noir, she holds a Master's Degree in Classics.
As a scholar, she writes and lectures internationally on a variety of
subjects from Sallust to
Superman. Her short story "Convivium",
a prequel to NOX DORMIENDA, was nominated for a 2007 Spinetingler Award.
Kelli also likes to travel on trains, play with her dog, listen to New
Orleans jazz, talk to the cat, and swig strong bourbon on cold nights.
Occasionally, she will sing “See What the Boys in the Backroom Will
Have” in the shower.
Her favorite film is Casablanca—she always gets choked
up over the “Marseillaise” scene. Favorite writers include
Raymond Chandler, Thomas Hardy, Catullus and Shakespeare.
When she's not writing, speaking or solving a (literary) crime, she can
usually be found at film festivals, old bookstores, and the most atmospheric
bars in Noir City.
Her next book in the Arcturus Mystery series is MALEDICTUS (Cursed). She
is currently researching her third Arcturus novel, and writing a second
mystery/noir series set in San Francisco in 1939. You can write her at
kelli@kellistanley.com.
Kelli Stanley wrote her first noir (a play) at the tender age of seven. She played the starring role in the crime melodrama for her third-grade class, precociously breaking gender boundaries as a Jimmy Cagney-like gangster. “No grapefruits were used in the production!” she laughs. “From what I remember, it involved a French love interest named Madeline and ended with the anti-hero’s death in a dark alley.”
It took Kelli a few more years to combine another passion—the ancient world—with her apparently genetic predisposition to noir. In between, she helped her parents with another business venture—a riding stable—wrote poetry, opened and ran a successful retail business (a comic book/pop culture store), wrote a few screenplays, lived in Italy and traveled through Europe, learned Latin and Greek, got a B.A. in Art History and Classics and a Master’s Degree in Classics. She also grew up.
Where she grew up might have something to do with her eclectic nature and Renaissance woman erudition. An only child, she moved from Washington State, where she was born—“the corner pocket”—to Florida to Colorado and finally to California. After a sojourn in San Jose, her parents settled on forty acres in the rugged, rural north. “Not Marin County. Humboldt County, which is a little further away on every level. It’s one of the last bastions of wilderness in California—there’s actually a stretch of coast line called ‘The Lost Coast’—when we operated a riding stable with the State Park system, my father took people on horseback tours through the country, and he had to blaze his own trails.”
During Kelli’s adolescence, animals outnumbered people in her everyday environment. She grew up with redwood trees, which she credits with giving her a sense of perspective. And she grew up without a telephone or the PG&E grid. “There was none of the technology we take for granted—light switches, heater controls. Even the water had to be pumped from a spring, about a quarter mile down a steep hillside. I know it sounds like some sort of fable, but I really did study by a kerosene lamp. Our heat was a wood stove. It’s not that we abandoned the modern world—we had a gas generator and a color television. We just didn’t rely on the technology. We were independent of it, which is a great feeling.” Kelli claims the experience gave her a sense of focus, creativity and a sympathetic ear to the rhythm of nature, which she’s never lost. But she’s also never lost the rhythm of the city, which she’s heard since her first play.
Kelli’s appetite for a good book was insatiable. By the time she graduated from high school, she’d read “everything from Proust to Henry Miller.” She’d done a lot of acting, and chose to major in Drama at the University of Dallas. “I had no desire to go to Texas, until they seduced me with a big scholarship I won in competition. My other choice was U.C. San Diego and a Chemistry major.” UD offered a semester in Italy program, though, and that decided Kelli. She spent a semester in Italy before concluding that the small, private school was “too small and too private.”
She moved to San Francisco, where she attended San Francisco State, discovered Classics—which had always been a consuming interest—“since reading D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths when I was in second grade”—and is where she now lives, happily ensconced in writing and a long-time relationship. She spent another year in Italy while a SFSU student, and someday wants a house in the southwest of England. “Dorset and Devon are like a spiritual home,” she says. “Like my own special tree on our property—which I’m glad to say my parents still own.”
She spent several years in the retail business of comic books, writing for trade magazines, appearing in Entrepreneur magazine, and earning a coveted spot on the DC National Retailer’s Board. “And I still love comic books!” she adds. “Batman was always my particular totem. Those were happy years. I’m always really touched when someone I knew when they were twelve recognizes me from the store. I have to do instant age progression! It’s a great thing to be a good part of someone’s childhood … or any happy memory.”
In addition to writing, Kelli never lost her love of acting, and will declaim Shakespeare if given any encouragement—“and sometimes when actively discouraged!” She laughs easily, is a triple Gemini, a Dragon in the Chinese calendar “with a temper to match”, and her favorite colors are blue and green.
As a scholar, she writes and lectures nationally and internationally. As a person, her passions are environmental and historical preservation and animal rights. As a writer, she hopes that Nox Dormienda will become a highly successful standard for her new Roman Noir subgenre. She is planning an extensive reading/signing tour for the U.S. and England, and can give talks on a multiplicity of topics from the definition of Roman Noir to ancient medicine to the challenge of researching historical mysteries.
Maledictus (Cursed) is the next book in her Arcturus series. Kelli is researching the third, as well as a second series set in San Francisco in 1939. You can write her and discuss anything from film noir to Batman to the dative case in Latin by emailing kelli@kellistanley.com. She adds with a laugh: “Especially if you’re interested in the film rights for that third grade play …”
Kelli is a member of
the following professional organizations:
(Writing): Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Private Eye Writers
of America, International Association of Crime Writers, Historical Novel
Society, and the International Thriller Writers
(Classics): American Philological Association, Archaeological Institute
of America, Women’s Classical Caucus, American Classical League,
California Classical Association
ABOUT
ELLI
Kelli Stanley is a mystery writer. She is also a classicist. She's been a few other things, too ...
Below are two biographies. One is short, the other more detailed.
On another page you can read an interview with Kelli, where she discusses noir, Rome, writing and the stuff that dreams are made of.
