Novelist Sandra Kring's real life story is a page turner. Although she writes fiction, a memoir is not out of the question, she says. And this is good enws for readers because her triumphant experience is truly inspirational and worth telling.

Kring, who lived in Wisconsin her entire life and currently resides in Wausau,  will read from her latest novel, "How High the Moon," on Wednesday, April 28 at Open Book, 4093 N. Oakland Ave., at 7 p.m.; Thursday, April 29 at Barnes & Noble, 95 N. Mooreland Rd., at 7 p.m.; and Saturday, May 1 at Once Upon a Time, 5620 Broad St., at 3 p.m.

"How High The Moon" is Kring's fourth novel and was published by Random House on April 10. The book tells the story of 10-year-old Isabella whose mother left her with a former boyfriend so she could pursue a career in Hollywood. It's the summer of 1955, and Isabella makes friends with Brenda Bloom, a 17-year-old from the most prominent family in Milltown, Wisconsin.

Kring's debut novel "Carry Me Home" was a Book Sense Notable pick and a 2005 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award nominee. Her novel "The Book of Bright Ideas" was named to the New York Public Library's Books for the teen age list in 2007.

Kring is currently working on her fifth novel and embarking on a rigorous touring schedule, but she took time to get real with OnMilwaukee.com.

OnMilwaukee.com: Have you always lived in Wisconsin?

Sandra King: Yes. I have lived in Wausau for almost two years. Before that, Sheboygan. I grew up in Price County, in a tiny town called Brantwood with 399 people.

I started writing fiction because I lived miles away from any place. Brantwood has a one-man post office and a credit union that's open three mornings a week and that's it. So you can start writing fiction or never meet a new human being in your life.

OMC: When did you start writing and what inspired you?

SK: It was always something I was interested in, but I didn't start until two of my three children were grown.

I didn't read at all as a child. There were no books in our house. I got married at 17 and moved to Platteville. We had no money, and so I went to the library. I started in the A's and I kept going, reading five or six books a week and started wondering if maybe, maybe I could do this myself.

I was always a letter writer. I wrote eight- or nine-page letters. I was a writer, always, I just didn't know it.

OMC: So, you do not have any training as a writer? You are completely self-taught?

SK: Yes. I started looking at novels and figured out what I needed to learn. I picked out topics systematically and wrote pages and pages of each different aspect of writing. But I was living in the middle of nowhere, so far from everything. I didn't know writers and I couldn't even get the Internet. I didn't know what I was doing and I naively thought that if I teach myself to write and work long and hard enough, I will write something good and "they" will buy my book.

In this case, ignorance is bliss and it really did happen for me. Now, from this perspective, I have seen lots of great scripts without publishers, but I'm glad I did not know that then or else I might not have tried.

So finally, after all the learning and practicing, when I thought I had gained enough, I wrote a practice novel. Then I wrote a second novel in six weeks, which was the first novel I got published.

OMC: You wrote a novel in six weeks?

SK: Yes. As soon as I started writing it, I knew I was going to sell it after I wrote a couple of paragraphs. I just knew it. And two weeks after I wrote it, I found agent and two months later, I sold it.

OMC: Have you written your other novels as quickly?

SK: For a while, I thought I was going to give Stephen King a run for his money. I am a very fast writer, but on average, it takes me six or eight months to write a novel. Finding the story, though, takes me longer.

OMC: Do you always write in the First Person? Are the characters always, in some way, you?

SK: Yes. I get so engrossed in the character that it takes me months to let go of the voice and find a new one. The narrators of my stories are always me. Well, different facets of myself.

OMC: Why do you write from the perspective of a child?

SK: It's just a voice that I prefer. I find a lot of humor and honesty in the way kids think. It seems to work for people. I get letters from people ages 13-84 because it's something we all have in common: we have all been children.

OMC: When did you sell your first book and how many have you sold since then?

SK: I sold my first book in 2003 and have sold one every year to year-and-half since then. I am working on my fifth book right now. It's due on Aug. 1.

OMC: You have the support of a major publisher. So what's it like for you to make money on your writing?

SK: For the majority of my life I was a stay-at-home mother. I did seasonal work and sang in a band, but mainly, I raised children. When I sold my first book, I said, "Awesome, I have a job," and my publicist said, "No, Sandy, you have a career."

OMC: What was your childhood like?

SK: This has been talked about a lot in interviews, so there's no need to dwell. But I came out of a violent home and I had it pounded into me that I was dumb. That I wasn't a good student. I missed a lot of school. And yet, there was always a part of me that thought I'm going to do something really amazing. The hardest part was getting myself to believe I could do this. That anything good would come out of me.

OMC: Do you have the desire to reach out to other kids and tell them your inspiring story?

SK: I have gone into schools. And maybe down the road I will do more, but I am so busy right now with the book and the tour.

OMC: How do your children feel about your success as a writer?

SK: My daughter is hitting middle age now -- I had her so young that I tell people my daughter and I are now basically the same age. She said to me recently, "Wow, Mom, I'm so used to the way things are that I forget how far you've come. Now and then it pops into my mind and it's amazing."

She remembers me years ago, when I was so plagued with post traumatic stress and depression that I had no energy for life.

OMC: Was there anything that inspired you to write? To rise from your depression?

SK: I came across this quote by James Hillman, "If you want to heal the person, you must first heal the story they imagine themselves to be in." This prompted me to look at my life as a novel. What if my life were a novel? You have this child who started out with challenges and sadness, but what would make this a satisfying end? What if she took everything she learned, like how to create fantasy, and the knack to be observant and how to understand what people mean behind their words and did something good with all of those things? What if she become a writer and started making choices and created her own story with a terrific ending?

OMC: Ever consider writing a memoir?

SK: Not an actual autobiography, but I am considering a piece of non-fiction.

OMC: Any final words?

SK: For some reason, in life and writing, I always take the hardest road. I would have made a square wheel.