Author, once actress, sees her novel turned into play

On Friday night, Stephanie Kallos will experience an unusual kind of déjà vu.

A veteran actress herself, she will be in the audience for the premiere of a new play based on her own novel, "Broken for You."

Kallos says she's perfectly content to let others (including her actor-spouse, Bill Johns) do the emoting in Book-It Repertory Theatre's version of her acclaimed book, "Broken for You." She's also glad she didn't pen the script or direct it. (Laura Ferri did both.)

"I have nothing to do with it, other than lending them my husband," says the warm, vivacious author, who lives in North Seattle with Johns and their two sons.

"I have great respect for Book-It. And it's been three years since I've been involved with the novel in any way. I'm eager to let go of it and see it with fresh eyes."

"Broken for You" centers on Margaret, an ailing Seattle woman in her 70s, and Wanda, the broken-hearted young boarder she brings into her antique-filled Capitol Hill mansion — with life-changing consequences. "The book is about a very strange family made up of disenfranchised people," Kallos notes. "It's about making family where you find it."

In a series of events any first-time novelist would envy, "Broken for You" also has transformed its author's life.

Critics lavishly praised the book for its "well-crafted plotting" and "crackling wit," comparing Kallos to famed novelists Margaret Atwood and Anne Tyler.

And it didn't hurt that novelist Sue Monk Kidd ("The Secret Life of Bees") boosted sales by picking "Broken for You" for TV's "Today Show" book club.

Grateful for her midlife change of profession, Kallos says "the writer lifestyle is much better for me than being an actor."

For a lot of years, though, she was on the theater track. After earning a graduate acting degree from the University of Washington, she performed at ACT, Empty Space and other theaters. She also toiled as a vocal coach.

But, gradually, the Nebraska native, a longtime "closet writer," turned to literary work.

"One of the best things I did was join a writing group," she reveals. With the support of fellow scribes, she began to get her short fiction published. And in 2003, opportunity knocked loudly when a literary agency spotted a story by Kallos ("Blanche Before and After") in Carve, an online magazine.

"I had the good sense to write in my bio that I'd just finished my first novel," she recalls. The agency snapped up the "Broken for You" manuscript. Grove Press brought it out in 2004, and it won a Washington State Book Award, among other honors.

Kallos is only now realizing how much inspiration for the novel came from her mother Dorie (who passed away recently). "She was from a very poor background, and my dad did well enough for her to travel and acquire many beautiful things.

"She loved her things, and each piece had a story, which fascinated me. I also got from her my belief in magic, coincidence and the life of dreams."

Kallos is now finishing her second novel, "Hope's Wheelchair," which is due out in 2007 and delves into "the Nebraska side of my family."

And though happy to be a mere spectator at the Book-It opening, she has no regrets about her theater years.

"As an actor you need to learn how to climb into someone's head, and under their skin," she reflects. "I don't know how I'd be a writer if I hadn't done that."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com