Biography
Gayle Bartos-Pool
(When I was 25, it was a very good year...)
| Write what you know. |
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A graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis,
Gayle took a year off between her Sophomore
and Junior years and worked first as a newspaper
reporter for a small Mid-South weekly. She
wrote the local articles, laid out the front
page, and took the pictures with an old Polaroid
camera. About the only thing she didn't do
was deliver the stupid thing every Thursday.This was in the pre-computer, pre-digital
camera, pre-Internet era.
Gayle followed that job with a stint as a
private detective working for Mark Lipman
Service Incorporated out of Memphis. She
traveled to various locations around the
country like Atlanta, Chicago, and Little
Rock. She worked undercover on an assembly
line, in a clothing factory, and in a printing
company. As her female protagonist, Ginger
Caulfield, says in the book, "It's amazing
how much people will tell you when they don't
know they're being questioned."
She has worked as a draftsman, in a bookstore,
made miniatures for a doll house shop, and
then spent a decade in a bank learning about
stocks and bonds before she "retired"
to continue her writing full time. It was
that bank experience that led to her writing
Hedge Bet. Upcoming books in the "Gin Caulfield
Mystery Series" will take other real-life
situations and wrap a mystery around them.
That's where good stories come from.
Gayle's spy novels are dear to her heart.
Her dad was an officer and pilot in the United
States Air Force. He served during WWII,
Korea, and through part of the Vietnam War
and the Cold War. He flew C-47s and C-130s.
Attached to the 66th Tactical Reconnaissance
Wing when the family lived in France, his
planes took aerial reconnaissance photos
(read: spy photos). Gayle used both her father's
as well as her own background to write the
spy novels which are still in the editing
phase. Was her father a spy? You know real
spies never tell. Gayle does have a letter
from J. Edgar Hoover accepting her as a GS2
in the FBI, but she already had the P.I.
gig at the time, so she said she turned him
down.
The historical facts in the spy stories are
from books, magazines, and newspaper articles.
Many of the locations are places she actually
lived when her father was in the service.
They lived on Okinawa, in France, and toured
Europe and parts of the Far East. Her parents
traveled to Russia, China, South America,
Greece, through the Panama Canal, and into
Canada. Many of those travels are in the
books. Actual events are interwoven with
the fictional stories. Sometimes you can't
tell where truth ends and fiction begins.
Gayle graduated from a boarding school in
France (Dreux American High School) and received
a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rhodes College
in Memphis, majoring in Fine Arts.
She paints, builds miniature doll houses, and makes hand-made Santas and other crafts. Her Christmas stories are filled with photographs of things she made just to illustrate the books. See Bearnard's Christmas for an example of her work.
Gayle's husband, Richard J. Pool, is the
basis for Gin's husband, Fred, in "The
Ginger Caulfield Mysteries." They have
shared their home with various dogs and cats,
all strays, and each one special. Four of
them make guest appearances in her first
holiday story, Bearnard's Christmas.
She collects Santas (over 3000), Christmas
ornaments, Halloween decorations, Easter
items, Fourth of July decorations, roosters,
and just about everything else, space permitting
and husband willing.
She is a member of both Sisters-in-Crime
and Mystery Writers of America. She was on
the board of Sisters-in-Crime/Los Angeles
as their Speakers Bureau Director, doing
over 71 events, she initiated their workshop
program, and worked on the last No Crime
Unpublished conference sponsored by SinC/LA.
She was one of the founding members who brought
together Mystery Writers of America and Sisters-in-Crime
for their inaugural joint conference called
the California Crime Writers Conference in
June of 2009.
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