Author Interview: Katie Rose Guest Pryal Talks About FALLOUT GIRL

Hi friends!

I’d like to introduce Katie Rose Guest Pryal. I’ve read many of Katie Rose’s essays, which are honest and insightful, but until FALLOUT GIRL I hadn’t read Katie’s fiction. The good news is, I didn’t need to read the first books in the series to appreciate this story. I was able to fall right into the rhythm of Miranda George and her story. And it intrigued me to find out more about the other books in the series.

Please welcome Katie Rose to Women’s Fiction Writers!

Amy xo

MEET KATIE ROSE GUEST PRYAL

Amy: Where did you get the spark of the idea for Miranda?

Katie Rose: Miranda came to me half-way through Chasing Chaos. Daphne, the main character of CHASING CHAOS  needed someone in her life to care for, but also, at the same time, someone to push her harder than her friends would when she started making some bad decisions. Miranda was a side character who was both vulnerable but full of sharp edges. She became the main character in HOW TO STAY, a novella that dives into her backstory in North Carolina, and FALLOUT GIRL, which picks up where CHASING CHAOS leaves off.

Amy: Hollywood Lights is a trilogy, did the ideas come to you in order?

Katie Rose: I wrote the first book in the Hollywood Lights series, ENTANGLEMENT  a long time ago, back when my time in L.A. didn’t seem like a distant memory, but rather something more recent. I didn’t intend for the book to be the beginning of a series.

However, my publisher thought that ENTANGLEMENT would make a good start to a series, so I wrote a second book, and then a third, and and now, years later, I’m finishing up the series. FALLOUT GIRL is book 5. (Book 6, in progress, will be the last.) The stories all feature different main characters, and they all stand alone. I call them “linked novels,” a more accurate descriptor than the word “series,” which I think implies that you have to read them in order to understand what is going on.

Amy: Tell us about using California as a setting. How did you choose that? Or, did your characters choose?

Katie Rose: The books are set in between North Carolina and Los Angeles. I’m from North Carolina, so that part’s easy. I lived in Los Angeles for a little while after college. Los Angeles, and the various neighborhoods and landmarks, the way people live there, the geography and architecture—is a character itself.

Amy: Without spoilers, which was the most difficult scene in the book to write? Did it end up being one of your favorites or were you just glad to be done with it? Share that experience with us, and maybe how you rose to the challenge. (Katie Rose rose, bet you never heard that before.)

Katie Rose: To be honest, this ENTIRE BOOK was difficult to write. I’d been on a roll, honestly, dashing off novels over the past few years like it was nothing. And then I came up against this book, and I thought it might break me. I’m serious. This book was so difficult. And then the rewriting was difficult. And then I had reader after reader look at it, and then I had to revise over and over, more times than I ever have needed to before. Writing this book felt like tearing something out of myself. But, like you said in your question, because of all of this work, the book became my favorite because of all of this work.

Amy: You’re one of the most well-rounded writers I know. You do it all. Novels, non-fiction, academia, publishing. Can you share with us a little about starting your own press?

Katie Rose: My first piece of advice is don’t do it alone. You need someone with complementary skills. My second piece of advice is to be a lawyer. My partner and I joke that between us we have an accountant, an attorney, a graphic designer, a web designer, a social media manager, two developmental editors, two copyeditors, a marketing department, and more. It’s really amazing how much work is required to be successful.

Amy: What’s your best advice for aspiring novelists?

Katie Rose: You have to be cocky and humble at the same time. It’s hard to know when. But you need both.

Katie is a novelist, essayist, and erstwhile law professor in Chapel Hill, NC. She is the author of the Hollywood Lights Series, which includes ENTANGLEMENT, LOVE AND ENTROPY, CHASING CHAOS, HOW TO STAY, and FALLOUT GIRL (2018). She also writes nonfiction, including LIFE OF THE MIND INTERRUPTED: MENTAL HEALTH AND DISABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

As a journalist, Katie has contributed to QUARTZ, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, THE (late, great) TOAST, DAME MAGAZINE, PASTE MAGAZINE, and more. She earned her master’s degree in creative writing from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, where she attended on a fellowship. She lives in Chapel Hill where she works as an editor and teaches creative writing. She is a member of the Tall Poppy Writers (tallpoppies.org). You can connect with Katie on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @krgpryal, on her blog at katieroseguestpryal.com, and through her e-letter at pryalnews.com.