Rebecca Kauffman Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Rebecca Kauffman is an American author from Northeastern Ohio who wrote ‘The Gunners’, a popular novel that explores the lives of a group of childhood friends.

+Biography
Rebecca Kauffman comes from rural northeastern Ohio. That is where she spent her childhood. The author’s parents lived in a triplex. Kauffman and her immediate family shared their home with their grandmother, and an aunt and uncle.

Her childhood was active and vibrant. The people who crowded the triplex made tranquility and peace impossible. But you won’t find the author complaining. Her aunt and uncle had two sons who were not so different from her in age.

Kauffman also had a sister who was older by only two years. Together, the four of them raised all kinds of hell, having built a strong unbreakable bond. Their neighborhood had a group of rowdy boys who would join them from time to time, making their hangouts that much scarier and all the more thrilling.

It was a wild and exciting upbringing, one that Kauffman spent running through fields and dancing in streams. The fact that she eventually acquired a BA in violin performance from the Manhattan School of Music might surprise some of the people who knew her as a child.

Kauffman wasn’t one to sit still for long, at least not back then. And yet she went on to acquire an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU. Life after college brought with it a litany of challenges.

And Kauffman’s journey to publishing success wasn’t quite as straightforward as she would have liked. The author took a few detours along the way, working in restaurants most of the time and also landing a few teaching gigs where the opportunities arose
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Writing came easily enough to the author. In fact, Rebecca Kauffman wrote a fair amount when she was young. But then she completely abandoned the activity as she approached her teens, only picking it up again in her late 20s.

Her most powerful tools have always been a thriving imagination and an unquenchable curiosity about the lives of other people. Her first novel was ‘Another Place You’ve Never Been’.

It took all the strength and will she could master to actually complete the book. This was at a time when she wasn’t even sure that writing was her calling. Back then, Rebecca Kauffman was quite the slow writer, or so she thought.

The fact that she even completed ‘Another Place You’ve Never Been’ is a miracle seeing as she only ever wrote one paragraph a day. Kauffman struggled with stress and anxiety and nothing she did could compel her to push beyond her limits.

So she stuck to her singular paragraphs each day, questioning why she was pouring so much of her effort into the project but never once contemplating the idea of quitting. But then ‘Another Place You’ve Never Been’ was completed and everything changed.

Rebecca Kauffman found an agent and a publisher both of whom were willing to take a chance on her work. A little while later, Kauffman’s first ever novel actually graced the shelves of a real bookstore.

The achievement blew Kauffman’s anxieties away. She realized that there were people in the world who valued her work and that gave her the courage to write her second novel.

‘The Gunners’ was so much easier to complete. The process was painless and it seemed to sail along to the finish line with so little opposition that Kauffman couldn’t quite figure out what made her first novel such a chore.

‘The Gunners’ was actually inspired by some of Kauffman’s own experiences, specifically the questions she had with regards to whether or not people could change.

The author imputes a lot of her success to her agent Michelle Tessler, an individual that understands Kauffman’s writing and who has done more than most to help the author polish her stories.

Even with all the experience the author has garnered over the years, she will be the first person to tell you that writing never gets easier. Kauffman has learned to extract joy from the process but she still has to push herself to meet her writing goals and objectives on a regular basis.

It takes discipline and practice. Interestingly enough, whereas many other authors love writing and hate revisions, Rebecca Kauffman seems to thrive in the revision stage of her writing.

She loves receiving feedback from other people and she actually enjoys doing cuts, eliminating entire sections of her manuscripts, especially if she believes that the final product will benefit immensely.

+Another Place You’ve Never Been
Tracy is a woman in her mid-thirties. A native of Buffalo, NY, which is where she also works, Tracy is a hostess at a restaurant. She spends most of her days at work. The restaurant isn’t exactly the destination Tracy had in mind when she was growing up.

She always hoped to land a job that would engage her creative talents but things did not work out the way she wanted.

This book is an exploration of Tracy’s life. Readers are allowed to peek into the heroine’s existence from the perspectives of the other characters she encounters along the way.

Different people tend to have different reactions to this book. There are readers who hate the fact that ‘Another Place You’ve Never Been’ is a collection of short stories that is advertised as an ordinary novel.

There are also people who love all the characters that Rebecca Kauffman introduces and the manner in which they encounter and impact Tracy’s life.

+The Gunners
Mikey is a man in his early thirties who struggles to make emotional connections with other people. When readers first meet him, Mikey is meeting up with his group of childhood friends.

Sally, one of ‘The Gunners’ committed suicide. In the period leading up to the incident, Sally had distanced herself from the group. And it also seems like she was keeping secrets, both about herself and the group.

Mikey wants to expose everything. He wants to know what happened to Sally and what drove her to act as she did.