By Kristine Vanover-Kilburn
Central Kentucky native Ginny Logan is a bestselling author of more than 50 novels that have been published under the name Virginia Smith. Her debut novel, “Just As I Am,” was published in 2006.
Ginny has said that, while some writers will tell you that they knew they wanted to write from the time they learned to read, that wasn’t the case for her.
“In high school, I planned to be a criminal attorney,” Ginny said.
However, before pursuing that career path, her focus shifted to marriage and starting a family. When she returned her focus to beginning down a career path, it was in the corporate world, primarily in human resources. Ginny’s HR career spanned 20 years of what she described as corporate ladder climbing, leading to her role as the director of human resource systems for Lexmark International.
Even though she had never considered writing at that time, she had always been an avid reader, and reading is how she was convinced to try writing something herself.
“One day, when I was in my mid-20s,” Ginny said, “I read a short story in a magazine and thought, ‘Well, that wasn’t very good. I could do better than that.’ So, I sat down and wrote my first short story.”
That first short story was a science fiction story about intelligent garden weeds that wanted to take over the world. Ginny noted that when she finished the story, it was, in her opinion, the best short story that had ever been written by anyone, at any time, and definitely worthy of awards. She packaged the manuscript and sent it to the editor of the magazine that had published the “inferior” story responsible for her decision to take up the pen. Then, she said, she sat back and waited for the money and awards to start rolling in.
The story was rejected with a handwritten note from the magazine’s editor stating that the writing was, unfortunately, overdone, and the theme common. Ginny said the rejection stung, and she vowed to never submit another story. But, as she was writing that first story, she had fallen in love with writing — the process, letting an idea come alive in her mind and finding the exact words she needed to describe the vivid images as she imagined them. So, she kept writing.
After a few years, she joined a writing group and started to learn the elements of the craft, which is when she discovered that handwritten notes from editors on a rejection letter is actually a rare occurrence, as is generally meant to be encouraging. Ginny noted that she had collected 147 rejection letters before landing her first professional publication — quite a few with handwritten “encouragements,” which she still has.
When that first book was being prepared for its release, Ginny was working on writing her second and third books. She realized that she needed to make a choice to either focus on her corporate career or focus on writing. Her corporate career was more financially productive, but she had discovered that she had a genuine passion for writing.
“I realized that life is about more than making money, or it should be,” she said, “so I chose writing.”
Her favorite part of the writing process has been the research. There’s an old adage that says, “write what you know.” Ginny says her interpretation is “research until you know the subject, then write what you know.”
She begins every new book by doing research about the setting, the time period, and any aspects that will be important to the story. When possible, she prefers to travel to the place the story will be set or learn the things her characters will be engaged in before she begins writing.
Some of her favorite research experiences thus far have been working as a zookeeper’s assistant while researching for “The Zookeeper’s Daughter,” scuba diving in the Caribbean for “Into the Deep,” interviewing Las Vegas impersonators for “Dangerous Impostor” and learning pottery for “The Amish Widower.” Sometimes the research is more historical, in which case she reads everything she can on the subject and interviews experts in the field of study, as was the case for her Biblical fiction novels, “The Last Drop of Oil” and “The Woman Warrior.”
After researching, the rest of the writing process depends on the genre of the story. Ginny writes in a variety of different genres, preferring to try her hand in different types of writing rather than limit herself for the sake of market branding. She says her process for writing different types of stories is just as varied as the genres she writes in.
For mysteries, which the majority of her novels in recent years have been, she plots out the story chapter by chapter before writing anything. Starting with a bare-bones outline, she identifies where each clue will be dropped, every red herring, and all of the big surprises in the story, mapping out exactly how the readers’ suspicions should play out as they read. After the outline is complete, Ginny said she’s usually able to write a mystery novel in three to four weeks, because she already knows exactly what is supposed to be happening at each point in the story. For other types of novels, the process is altered slightly.
Because she writes in a variety of different genres and over an assortment of topics, Ginny acknowledged her personal writing style can be hard to pin down. However, if she had to choose one element that she felt was most common to all of her work, she would say that it is characterization. In highly character-driven stories, she takes time to really get to know the characters, their environment and their struggles.
The best example of this, in Ginny’s opinion, are the books in the “Tales from the Goose Creek B&B” series, the first of which, “The Most Famous Illegal Goose Creek Parade,” was a top pick by Library Journal and received a starred review that compared it to Jan Karon’s Mitford series.
Ginny said that she writes characters that are relatable and believable, that are accessible and engaging and feel real, whether they live in ancient times, like the prophetess Deborah in “The Woman Warrior,” or are caught up in some kind of mystery, like Penny Cavanaugh in the “Irish Tearoom Mysteries” from book club publisher Annie’s Fiction. The first book in that series, “Deadly Brew,” released at the end of July 2024.
“I loved writing these books!” Ginny said, pointing to the fact that the books are set in Ireland — a place that already held a piece of her heart.
She first traveled to Ireland in 2005, when she was still working for Lexmark, and she fell in love with the people and the country while she was there. She noted her Irish roots, musing that a love for all things Irish might just be in her blood. But the idea for a mystery series set in Ireland had actually come from her publisher. Ginny said she had already published eight novels with Annie’s Fiction, and believes that the publisher had approached her about the series because she had known of Ginny’s affection for the country and culture.
Ginny was contracted to write three books in the series, the first, the fifth and the last, beginning in 2020. Other writers were hired for the books in between, Ginny noted, like being hired to write one episode for a well-known TV series. Each of the books has its own mystery and can be read as a stand-alone story, but the main characters appear in each of the books. Being contracted to write the first book gave Ginny the opportunity to create the setting and characters and introduce readers to the series.
The stories are set in a fictitious village near the real location of Blarney Castle in County Cork, which gave Ginny some creative freedom to design the village the way she needed it to be to work with the plot of the first book, but Blarney Castle, and especially the Poison Garden, plays a significant role in the first book. While she had traveled to Ireland, she had never been to Blarney Castle, and was excited for the chance to take a research trip.
Of course, in 2020, the world saw mass border closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the trip to Ireland was not possible at that time. Travel bans were lifted while she was working on the fifth book in the series, “Druid on Arrival,” and she again immediately booked a trip to Ireland through the owner of an Irish shop based in Lexington who hosts an annual trip.
However, when a family emergency occurred, she had to cancel plans for that trip as well, and she ended up writing all three books before she was able to visit Blarney Castle. Luckily, Ginny has an extensive network of writer friends, some of whom live in Ireland, and she was able to use email correspondence and Zoom calls to complete the research necessary to write the books.
When she was finally able to visit Blarney Castle in September 2023, she was thrilled to discover that, thanks to her Irish friends’ help, the area, landscape, people and culture was exactly as she had described it in the books. Ginny said that she feels like the books capture the essence of the Irish culture and setting in a way that allows the reader to be fully immersed in the Irish setting.
Ginny said that her first impression of Ireland had felt like coming home. She found the Irish countryside to be similar to central Kentucky, with rolling green hills, but with more small villages, and fascinating legends and histories. She said it was hard to describe the way that it felt familiar, but that she believes she could live there and be completely content. She loved the area so much that she made the trip again last summer, and was able to do a book launch event at Blarney Castle for “A Deadly Brew.” She also flew to County Cork and did a promo tour of the castle grounds and a reading in the castle giftshop.
“Druid on Arrival,” Ginny’s 52nd publication, was released last October and she already has three more novels finished that will be released over the next few years, including her 53rd novel, “Wed and Gone,” the 12th and final book in the “Irish Tearoom Mystery” series, which will be released in May 2025.
“When I look at that number, and at all of the books on my bookshelf, I’m kind of stunned,” Ginny said. “It seems like I was reading that first rejection letter not long ago!”
Fifty-five completed novels in less than half that many years is a lot of writing, and a lot of time spent doing the writing. Ginny says she’s been able to turn out what roughly equates to three novels per year because she looks at writing as her job, and she treats it as such every day.
She pointed out that people often have the idea that writers only write when a wave of inspiration strikes, envisioning that the writer wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea and dives for their computer, frantically typing it all out onto the page.
“Maybe that happens to some writers, but it has never happened to me. I write whether I feel inspired or not,” Ginny stated.
For her, it’s a structured approach. When she was in the corporate world, she went to work every day, and as a writer, she does the same. She says she goes into her office every morning after she has her coffee and writes until it’s time to break for lunch. After lunch, she returns to her writing for the rest of the day. Sometimes she stops working in the afternoon, and sometimes, like when she is on a deadline, she works later. She asserted the key is that she goes to work every day, and she always knows what she’s going to be working on each day.
“That’s where a plot outline really comes in handy,” she said. “I look at my outline and know exactly what needs to happen in the next scene. My daily work is laid out for me.”
Ginny’s work has earned her a number of accolades and awards, including two Holt Medallion Awards of Merit in addition to the Library Journal top pick. Her book “Guilty Secrets” has also been made into a feature-length film that was released in January and streamed on the Lifetime Channel.
Ginny says she loves to travel — although, every trip is usually also research for a book — and she has plans to return to Ireland with her new husband, Bradley Logan, in the fall, as he has never seen the Emerald Isle. Ginny said that, when she isn’t working, she also enjoys caring for the chickens on the small farm she recently purchased with her husband, as well as motorcycle rides on curvy Kentucky roads, going to theater performances, and, of course, reading.
Ginny is also the president of the Bluegrass Writers Coalition, a nonprofit organization created to spread a love of literature and literacy across the state of Kentucky. The group meets on the second Thursday of every month at Paul Sawyier Public Library, and meetings are open to anyone who writes or wants to write. Additional information can be found at www.BluegrassWritersCoalition.com.
While some of Ginny’s books are only available through the publisher or directly from Ginny, many of them are available through booksellers and online sources like Amazon. She urges readers to support local bookstores as their first option, especially independent stores like Poor Richard’s Books in downtown Frankfort and Plaid Elephant Books in Danville, two of her favorite bookstores.
Ginny says that while she tries to keep her official website (https://virginiasmith.org/) updated with important announcements and news, the best way to stay up to date on any of her news or to get in contact with her is through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ginny.p.smith).
