K.R.:I’ve been writing since I first learned how to spell, and have been illustrating just as long. I’ve always been a story person, always creating endless adventure stories in my head, and I would create my own 10 page or so stories on paper and keep them in a binder as a kid. I couldn’t possibly keep those stories to myself. All it took was writing one story and I HAD to make another one. At one point, I think I had about 30 books being written at once while in high school. Seriously, it’s an addicting thing!

T.C.: Wow thirty projects is quite impressive, you must have found inspiration from a lot of different places! What would you say is the most frequent source of inspiration behind your writing?

K.R.: I draw much of my inspiration from nature. My first attempt at a novel was around geology and mineralogy because I was so greatly inspired by my earth science studies in eighth grade. I have always loved the ocean as well, so it’s natural that those things would follow from the early years of writing up to today, where I currently write mermaid stories (among other writing projects).

A.G.: Oh wow! I’ve never met anyone who draws inspiration from mineralogy- that’s awesome. For writing it’s mineralogy, but what about the inspiration for your drawings?

K.R.: I’ve loved illustrating just as much as I’ve loved writing. I’ve also been interested in film and animation all my life, and my current illustration style draws a great deal of inspiration from 2D animated shows and films. My technique is even close to the real deal, but the inspiration is there. I’ve had lots of people ask if my style is anime or anime-inspired. I have a hard time seeing what they mean, but I suppose I can kind of see it with the sharper angles that I like using. But to be clear, I don’t even watch anime, and my style isn’t derived from it. If anything, my current style evolved and developed from artist and animator Butch Hartman, the creator of series like Danny Phantom and the Fairly OddParents from the early 2000s. I loved his retro style with a ton of angles thrown into the linework, so my illustration work went from directly copying his work to developing my own voice based on his style. I think that’s how artists and illustrators ought to find their own style — copy and imitate at the beginning, but only enough to let it springboard you into finding your own visual language.

T.C.: Yes, I think that is a great method for discovering your own writing or illustrating style. Finding what you like but putting a spin on how you personally want to convey it. Many authors choose a different illustrator for their work, why did you decide to illustrate for your own stories?

K.R.: Funny you should ask… My likelihood of picking up a book and wanting to read it as a child/teen was heavily based on whether or not it had illustrations or a really interesting cover. I know, I know, “Never judge a book by its cover.” But I often agreed with Disney’s Gaston when he remarked, “How can you read this? There’s no pictures!” Illustrations always added to the storytelling experience so there was no way I couldn’t illustrate my own stories. If a book is illustrated, the illustrations ought to make up half of the storytelling experience, at least in my opinion.

A.G.: I totally agree with the interesting cover point you had- even though we aren’t ‘supposed’ to judge a book by the cover, I think it’s safe to say we all do. The cover is what first catches our eyes. So how long does it take you to write a book?

K.R.: It varies dramatically. The novel I was writing back in high school has taken me 15+ years, with plenty of off-and-on writing. It’ll come out eventually, but it’s very different from my current work, which involves shorter, simpler stories with lots of illustrations! My first mermaid book happened on accident while following the 2019 drawing prompts for Tom Bancroft’s MerMay, where artists around the world draw mermaids every day for the month of May to experiment with their style and hone their skills. I wound up creating a cohesive story with these prompts and expanded the story a little bit after MerMay was over, which is how I created The Tale of Capri. That particular book was created from start to finish in about 2 1/2 months, which is my current record for completing a book. But if I were to put an average to it, I would say it takes me anywhere between a year to three years to conceive and complete a book.

T.C.: That sounds like an awesome challenge! What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

K.R.:Surprising? Well, I suppose discovering just how much I could connect and bond with characters over the course of the time of writing. For instance, at the end of MerMay 2019, as I was wrapping up The Tale of Capri, I found myself feeling kind of sad — the same kind of sadness I feel when saying goodbye to a good friend whom I won’t be seeing for a long time. I’m always excited when I reread the story and fall in love with the characters all over again. Sometimes, you just want to see more of these characters, so I totally understand where the desire for sequels comes from. Inevitably, I did choose to create a sequel so that I could see these characters again, but I took it from a different angle so that I could make new friends with new characters.

You really shouldn’t stay stuck in one place for too long. Authors need to grow by making “new friends” with new characters in their writing. In this way, I think the writer is able to better understand the human experience and discover different parts of who they are. It’s a form of self-discovery when you think about it.

A.G.: Wow, I love how you explained the author's connection with their characters. I felt the same way when I was finishing writing Elven Cursed. It was sad to see my characters ‘leave me’ in a sense, but I knew that I needed to move on. I can tell you make relatable characters who we can connect with, which always makes for a good story and leads me to the question- What do you think makes a good story?

K.R.: My answer to this is the same as it is in making illustrations and art: is it BELIEVABLE? I think we’ve all read books or watched movies that were deemed a little too strange, weird, uninteresting, or outright unpleasant to consume with no productive outcome, but we couldn’t put our finger on why we didn’t like it. Stepping back, I think the biggest reason we are turned off by “bad” stories is because they aren’t believable. Now, this doesn’t mean that they have to be realistic stories by any means. Classic fairy tales are about as unrealistic as it gets, with talking animals, magical amulets, mysterious realms, and so on. But we don’t question them because, in the context of their own worlds, they present something believable. To simplify this even more, consider cartoon figures. Their proportions are often highly stylized and don’t even make sense from a realistic standpoint (e.g. the head is three times the size of the rest of the body), and yet we don’t question it. Why? Because the artists and animators have made it believable in the context of that world.

I think the other successful component to a good story is if the story is based on something real. Some of the most moving stories were the ones that were based on real-life experiences. Take the example of J.R.R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings story was greatly influenced by his experiences in WWI. Writing is an excellent way for authors to present some of their most secret parts of themselves onto paper without the reader explicitly knowing or realizing this. Authors can do this through allegory like Tolkien did, or take a more upfront approach by creating characters or circumstances that directly reflect something in their lives. I’m actually doing this in my current book The Mermaid Without Scales, where the reader has the opportunity to peer into the experience of a high-functioning autistic character, who in this case embodies my own experience of being on the autism spectrum and having extremely high sensory sensitivity. I’ve heard it said before by some artists and writers that if you feel like you’re in your underwear when presenting your work, you’re doing it right because you’re being authentic. This, I think, is another important component to creating a great story.

T.C.: Haha That’s a great quote! The journey of self-discovery you talked about earlier includes finding how you portray your experiences in your writing and I couldn’t agree more that being vulnerable in your writing adds an extra element of authenticity. Unfortunately, we have arrived at the last question, who are your favorite authors?

K.R.: I’m still a sucker for middle school/high school adventure/fantasy/mystery novels. There’s something about them that fuels my adventurous spirit. I experience reading in a very vivid and visceral way, so I like an author who will help me feel present and in the moment. One of my all-time favorite authors is Jeanne DuPrau and her Books of Ember. Not only do they fulfill those expectations from a book, but they explore the human experience and how we respond to each other and to our world, especially to the mysterious and unexpected. I’m also a big fan of Brian Jacques and his Redwall books, Patrick Carman and The Land of Elyon books, Charlie Fletcher’s Stoneheart trilogy, and of course some good old CS Lewis Narnia adventures.

A.G.: All such wonderful authors! I love your taste in books!

T.C.: This has been a wonderful interview and I personally have learned a lot, thank you so much for joining us, Kathleen! Have a wonderful week Readers, and we will see you next time!

Sidestory for the Readers

A.G.: T.C. and I thought it would be fun to share the behind the scenes of the interview with y’all! This was our first author interview that we got to meet with the author in person! Not only did we get to meet Kathleen, but we also went canoeing with her- fitting since she loves to write about what’s in the water. We had loads of fun (although it's safe to safe we almost flipped the canoe on multiple occasions. There were quite a few trees in the water because there had been a flood, and as we were horrible at turning the canoe… we headed straight for the trees countless times.) Here’s a picture from our time together!