Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathleen Maca.
Hi Kathleen, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
After over 20 years in the advertising industry (as a writer, media buyer and broadcast executive), I refocused my energy on writing.
I “dipped my toe” back into the public writing world by writing articles for several national magazines. I also began being a contributing feature writer about Galveston’s colorful history in 2011 for Galveston Monthly, and am happily still contributing to that publication.
With more time to focus on history and writing, I wrote my first book, Galveston’s Broadway Cemeteries, which came out in 2015. That was a labor of love as I’ve visited, researched and documented cemeteries for over 50 years. I was shocked that no one had written about it before, and was so excited and nervous when my first pitch to a publisher was enthusiastically accepted.
That has been followed by my next four books: Ghosts of Galveston, A History of the Hotel Galvez, Ghostly Tales of Galveston (for middle school readers), and Galveston’s Tremont House Hotel: A History.
I had been giving informal tours in the historic cemetery district on the island to anyone interested, but when the book came out I was receiving so many requests that I formalized a set of tour options to make it easier for people to find. Because I am trained in restoration work of gravestones, I do quite a bit of volunteer work in the cemetery as well and use part of my ticket sales for supplies (which can get expensive) for that.
Likewise, when My Ghosts of Galveston book came out, the requests for tours started coming in. It’s my most popular tour and I love the chance to share the haunted history of the island with visitors and locals. It’s given me the opportunity to meet people from all over the world, and compare cultures with them. The stories communities hold onto can reveal a lot about them.
My tours are different than most because I’ve done so much research about the island. Even for my ghost tours, I use my journalism and genealogy background to glean details that have been lost over time and only include stories that include historic accuracy. The truth of the past is scary enough without making up stories, believe me!
I’m grateful that the Galveston Railroad Museum has given me exclusive access to take my tours into the railyard after dark too, which has opened a whole new experience.
I have four other book projects currently in the works, in addition to a travel blog about Texas, freelance magazine articles, contract genealogy research, lectures, and tours. I sometimes wish I had a couple of clones to help out with my schedule, but I’m so grateful for all of the opportunities and especially the community support in Galveston.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Different aspects of my work have been challenging in different ways.
The book projects can sometimes feel a bit lonely to work on, and I try to fit in social time during long stints of writing. The research is one of my favorite parts of writing and it can be so exhilarating, but coming up on dead ends of information when I’m researching historic topics can also be frustrating and disheartening. Sometimes I just have to step back, regroup, and cast a wider net. For my Tremont House project, I found resources in archives as far away as Wyoming!
The walking tours are so enjoyable for me, but they have their own challenges as well. I’ve had people take my tour and then mention to me at the end that another tour company just hired them and told them to take mine to just copy whatever I did. After years of honing my own stories and style, this can be infuriating and heartbreaking. I also often pass by tours and overhear wild misinformation about Galveston’s past, which is so sad. I hate that visitors hear that and take those things away as facts.
But I’m so grateful for the fun I have with my tour guests, it makes it all worthwhile.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I absolutely love writing, and in the case of historical topics – the research that makes it possible. I have several more book topics in the works, but an even longer list impatiently waiting its turn.
When people talk about “history books,” I think we all think about the dull textbooks from school. I’ll be honest—I never liked those either. Memorizing lists of names and dates wasn’t my idea of interesting.
The storytelling side of history captured my heart when I was a child, listening to my grandfather’s tales of the Wild West. He was born in 1890, and the things he experienced were just like the Western television shows and movies that I loved. But his stories were about real people, like the gruff man who owned the mule stable in town, or the dusty brickyard he worked in as a child.
So in addition to beautiful, historic buildings, I’m always curious about who lived (or worked) there. What did they do for a living? What types of parties or holidays did they celebrate there? When I walk across the threshold of an old home, these are all the things running through my head.
Incorporating people’s experiences of these times and places is what makes it interesting to me, and is what people most often comment on.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kathleenmaca.com
- Instagram: @kathleen_maca
- Facebook: Author, Kathleen Maca
- LinkedIn: Kathleen Maca, CTA
- Youtube: @kathleenmaca1275
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