Hi Kate. Welcome to Watch for Next podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

So excited to have you here. I am so thrilled to have you because I've been following your romantic journey, but then you wrote Contemporary, which I love, and now you have an urban fantasy, a dark academia. I'm like all the elements that I like, 'cause I'm not a romantic secretly, but I love urban fantasy. Like I'm Nalini Singh, this early, like Janine Frost, like these. Urban fantasy that are just set in the world at the same time. It has some element, fantastic elements. So I am so excited for Half City. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yes. Okay. Well first of all, thank you. I'm so glad that you're so excited. And those are all the books that I love as well, which I'm sure you can tell. 'Cause you read, you've read the book. Yeah, a little about myself. I'm like what about me? I am from la I grew up in Los Angeles and initially went to school to study film. I wanted to work in film and television. I loved storytelling. I loved books and movies and TV my whole life, and for some reason, I think probably because of where I grew up. It made more sense to go into film and TV than it did to go into books. But I always had said, like maybe I'd work in publishing if I didn't work in film and tv, but I had never written anything. And then during the pandemic, people weren't really making movies. The company that working at, the movie studio was sort of like. We were all kind of trying to find things to do, but none of our projects were going none of the acting. There was a writer strike and act strike. It was sort of just like the perfect storm of frankly boredom and wondering what the next phase of creative storytelling would be in my life, because I didn't know if movies were ever coming back. I discovered romantic and read like every romantic book under the sun. I don't know how I had not, how it had taken me so long. I had always been a fantasy reader. I had always been a romance reader, but I hadn't really, I think Outlander was probably the closest to both that I had ever really loved. But my gateway drug was Sarah Mass. Like everyone. And when I had that well had run dry, like I had read every single romantic book out there. The loss was so great. I decided to write my own just for fun. And that was how I got into this, which is a very exciting, very strange, really, truly wonderful experience.

Yeah, LA has been in transition, I think, and I've been doing this for about 10 years. I'm interview quite a few authors at this point, and quite a few who are transitioning outta screenwriting to writing books or things are getting option and specific things. And so it's a common thing that I noticed like films are not getting made, like original work is not getting made, like now it's actually book to movie or like book specific, like writing your IP feels like a more and now a common. Pipeline, it's, and it's interesting to hear a lot of these, what we consider pandemic projects are actually now new careers and new areas that we're just exploring. It's just adding to the portfolio of careers that we get to have.

Yeah, I mean, I think, ugh I have so many thoughts on this because, I worked as like a, what I actually kept this job and continued working as a studio executive up until very recently. I only quit my job to write full-time, in October. So what, like two months ago? So that's a good yes, very exciting. Scary but wonderful. But anyway, I digress. My, what I was gonna say is. For so many years. From when I graduated college until October of this year I worked as a studio exec and that was my biggest complaint as well. I wasn't writing my own original screenplays or anything, but I was, a movie maker and a movie goer who felt like there was never anything, original getting told. The most kind of exciting original story that, that I have seen recently was sinners. And that was sort of a big part of the conversation, which was like, this is totally original ip. Just like something that is not based on, some preexisting like Disney Library or whatever. And I was having trouble getting things made that I loved. I'd read some original script or I'd hear a pitch from a writer, director, and. It was really hard even being on the studio side to get anything made, and so that was a huge part of it. Like when I wrote a Dawn of Onyx I think I was just like so hungry to do something that felt really creatively fulfilling and a lot of the stuff I was working on was not creatively fulfilling and I didn't realize, it's so funny when I wrote the book, I was like, I was talking to friends and it was like. No, you don't understand. It's so incredible. I get to have full creative control, like whatever I want the characters to do, they go do, and then the book is done and there's no, director, you have to appease or agent who has to make the deal for the actor, or you know this, you wanna set it at this setting, but the tech scout says that'll be too expensive. So now it's set here in, Albuquerque instead of Greece and everyone was like, yeah, duh. That's why, it's like, of course authors have a lot more creative control than like some person who's a small cog in the wheel of a big studio. But yeah, I totally agree. And also to your other point, so many people discovered things that they really loved career-wise, but also just about themselves in the pandemic. So for such a tragic, dark time, I do think that there was sort of the silver lining that a lot of people were sort of forced to reckon with themselves and like what they actually like to do and like what really brings them joy in a vacuum. Then, hopefully people were a lot braver than me and they actually went and just did it and didn't try to do the pandemic thing they loved and the original job for the next five years, it took me a long time to,

I think we don't have to, I think in this economy, unfortunately, we kind of have to do both. It's pursue it and grow it and stuff. I've been doing it for 10 years, but the pandemic shepherd one way to where I was moving forward, and even that, it's been five years of. Working both things, and I was just talking to a coworker. I somehow became, part of my job. Like I did not plan to do this. And I work in a non-book related job. It's nothing related, but it's just part of like where we are, Place of having the space to have creativity. I think the pandemic gave us permission to explore that creativity and those hobbies and those interests. And then as a good millennial, we're like, we gotta monetize it.

Yeah. Turn your hobby into money until you hate your hobby, right?

Make a side hustle like it's a girl class, we're in the post girl boss era of we gotta do something. Make this work.

It's so unbelievably true and it's so funny. I mean, everybody that I would talk to, post pandemic was like, oh, I wrote a pilot in the Pandemic, or I started my own clothing line in the pandemic. Or I started making my own, like Tea Cozies and selling them on Etsy. Or I started a travel blog of things to do in my local neighborhood that were like safe and, social distanced. And then by the time that was over, it became like a travel blog. And I was going to, Italy so many people found something, but then you're right. It's so hard to reconcile the thing you do for your heart with when the world kind of starts back up again and like the economy is terrible and we have to make a living, the job that pays the bills, that maybe you realize now you don't love that much. I mean, I think on some level I knew. Deep., I don't know. I liked my job. There's a lot of things I liked about my job, but I never felt like, oh, if you do what you love, you don't work a day in your life. That was never how the job felt to me. And then when I started writing, I really started to hate it. 'cause I knew what it felt like to do something that I loved with all my heart and frankly make money doing it. That was the other thing. It was like, I wrote this book. I never thought anybody would read it. And then I indie published it and it was. Successful enough to make amount of money. I was like, wait, the thing I love can earn me dollars. And I have to somehow not do that full time. It's torture, but it was no one's fault of my own. a lot of braver people, jump in with both feet into writing full-time as soon as they're making any kind of living wage. I was. So terrified of giving up this job that I had built my whole life around. It took me a long time to

Yeah, it takes a lot of brave action to take that uncomfortable because you can't control the unknown, you can't control the future. And we have specific things and I think you kind of have to get the proof in the pudding. 'cause sometimes people jump really quickly and then they're just like the net will appear and sometimes the net doesn't appear and you're scrambling. I think there's a path to do it. Every person has their own level of comfort with risk and assessment and what works for us and stuff. Seeing where it can go and trusting your process, not what other people are doing and not what the society tells you to do.

Totally to, I mean, a hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely.

and there's a lot of bad advice. There's a lot of people selling you something, selling you a dream.

so true on both sides. There are people that are like, if you love something, just jump in and don't think about it for another second follow your heart and you're like, okay, but like I have a mortgage. is your plan for that? If my

I,

book doesn't Yeah. Oh my God. Exactly. And then you had people who are like, you can't pursue writing full time, like writing about fairies. That's not a real job. That's a hobby. And then to those people, you're kinda like, well, that's bad advice too. I'm gonna follow my dreams. That's something that I believe in. So you're right. At the end of the day, it's like an extremely personal decision. And there, there is no right or wrong way. And I feel like. I have no, I don't look back and wish that I had quit sooner because I, it's like everything had to sort of fall into place in a certain way for it to be a decision that I didn't regret, or that I wasn't so scared that I couldn't do it. And that just happened to take me personally, like three years to do so that's just me.

So talk to us about your transition from Indie publishing to then getting a book deal and writing for contracts and then, having a publisher and having deadlines and specifics and having, be accountable to others. 'cause even though you get to create the world,. Similar to making a movie, a book needs to be made you.

Totally. It's a great question. Yeah, my experience was pretty I don't know, I was gonna say uncommon, no, that's not the word I'm looking for not the usual process, but actually I think this is happening more and more. I indie published my book a Dawn of Onyx and it wasn't like some kind of insane, like stratospheric success, but it was successful enough that I was getting. Message, emails and dms and messages from people asking about audio rights and translation rights and book events and conventions. And I had no team and I had no agent and I had no representation. So I didn't really know how to field a lot of these things. So I went to a, a friend, an agent, like an industry. That I knew from my, day job and asked her if she would just do me a favor and do some of these deals for me. And take you to lunch, just help me do this like audio deal. Like I don't know what I'm doing. And she was like, sure. And she takes a look at it and she's oh no. Like you need a real, like you need a literary agent. This is more than I can take on. It's also more than I know how to do. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll go query my book. But I was like, can you query a book that's already out in the market? Like I didn't really know the process and she, I was very lucky. It was an extraordinary privilege. She said, I know a literary agent that I think will love your book. That, actually I knew this agent from optioning a few books of her clients on my, day job side. She sent the book over to my agent Taylor and. Taylor, responded and ended up wanting to work with me. And then it was her idea. She was like, I was just thinking, help me do some of these, like audio deals, these foreign rights deals. And she said, let's, to put the book on sub. Let's try to take this to a traditional publisher and maybe they'll publish the rest of the trilogy. So we went out on submission and the book was preempted by Berkeley. And then at that point we pulled it from Amazon and the rest of the series, Peridot and Rose promise of Parado and a Reign of Rose was released by Berkeley. And then I did a second contract with Berkeley. So if not for my baby, my first contemporary, and then this book. City that we're gonna talk about. And the rest of that trilogy are all gonna be with Berkeley. And I hope, knock on wood, the rest of my career is with Berkeley. 'cause I love working with them. So, to answer sort of the second part of your question, you know it's interesting. Yes, there is. Unlimited freedom in Indie Pub. Your cover is whatever you want it to be. Your back blurb is whatever you want it to be. The deadlines are your own making. There are no rules. You can publish at whatever, tempo you want, however many books you want in a series, whatever. And that is obviously not the case in Trad pub. You have an entire team of people who have a say in. What your cover looks like when your book is, what date is released, how much time comes between books, what is in the books. You have an editor and a copy editor and a proof editor and like a team of people. So I'm sure to some I can totally understand why that would be. Not the path they wanna choose. Maybe suffocating, maybe would hamper the creative process. I am like a total dork and I love rules and I love homework and I want people to tell me, like when I'm in therapy, I'm like, so what do I do here to succeed therapy? And she's no, that's not how therapy works. I'm like, when do I get my gold star that I finished and I did it right? She's no. So I live my whole life like that and I, so I personally really thrive with all of the. Sort of like rules and regulations, it allows me to feel like tethered. I think the world of Indie Pub was so hard because I just felt well, how do I do it right? And everyone's there is no right. And I was like, I don't wanna hear that. Tell me how to do it. Right. And in trad pub, I say to my editor like, okay, but in your best, in your opinion, you've been doing this a long time. Do you think this should be the title? Do you, when do you think this should come out? I defer to her and to the team and find a lot of peace in that and a little bit of it's only my job to write the story and everything else is like a little bit out of my hands, and that takes a lot of pressure off of me. So I have no complaints. I love the system. I even love the deadlines because if no one gives me a deadline. On one hand, like I'll never stop working. 'Cause I'm like addicted to writing and I will do it. You can ask my friends and my family members I will wake up in the morning and write all morning and then I will go to work or used to go to work and then I would come home and write all night. So the deadlines give me some kind of break to know well, you can't just, eventually at some point you'll have written everything that you're contracted to write. But also then sometimes there's that, procrastination in all of us, and it's really helpful to know there's no wiggle room. This has to be done by this date. So, yeah. I personally, I have no complaints. I love the transition. It works really well for

Oh gosh, I love this. And yes, I do have a gold star and went to therapy multiple times. I was like, tell me how I succeed, how I make me, how I'm the favorite patient, because it's not even to

Oh

I wanna be my therapist's favorite patient. That's the whole point. Like model, patient, and,

Of course. want her to be like, wow, you can't be fixed any further. You have succeeded.

I trust me, I've gotten to a point where she's you're just having makeup problems right now. And I was like, but you don't understand. These are major problems. And it's just no, they're really, you're not like you're fine. You need to learn how to rest. You need to learn how to reset.

Totally. A million percent. I know. Us type A girlies have to

Yes. It's what do you mean eldest daughter?

Yeah. Fully. Oh yeah. Oldest of four. Oldest child of divorce. There's no rest. What do you mean Rest?

I was a parent

yeah. Yeah. I mean, wow. A kindred spirit.

Yes. Alright. Let's talk about Half City where we've been about it. It's urban fantasy. It is a demon, demon hunter, academic, like AC dark academia. Talk to us about this trilogy. What's a setup? 'cause the, it's the first book in a trilogy. There is a cliffhanger. I know. We gotta wait. It is. Okay. Talk to us about it. As I said, it has the elements. It reminds me of Gil Hunters that saying that urban fantasy kinda set up in the real world. But same time there's like some sort of demons and stuff that we gotta deal with.

Yeah, totally. So yes you hit the nail on the head. It's a dark academia urban fantasy. It's I'm not great at pitching it, but I've been saying it's like if Buffy the Vampire Slayer went to the spooky Yale School of ninth house, but it had the combat college of fourth wing and the like forbidden paranormal romance of vPrint or mortal instruments or whatever. And like kind of the lingering mystery of Wednesday I don't know. It's got a lot, there's a lot cooking. But kind of, the primary logline, the hook of the book is a 21-year-old demon hunter living in a kind of reimagined version of New York City that is bisected by this enormous chasm that sort of serves as a gateway to hell. The average person doesn't know about this, but of course, she knows, and her job is to hunt and slay deviance, which basically means all things that go bump in the night, werewolves, vampires, demons, and the like. And she thinks she's alone in the world, that she's the only person that's doing this. Her father taught her everything she knew and then her father was killed. Until she meets sort of like a reformed demon, sort of an angel from Buffy, if you will. It's like he is the bad thing, but he's striving every day to fight that internal nature who recruits her to go to a college that trains people like her. So it becomes sort of the story of like her and this. Demon at this demon hunting college. And then of course things start going very awry at the demon college. And she and the demon must work together to figure out what's going on. So you've got like enemies to lovers, forbidden romance teacher, student, although everybody is age appropriate. It's like college. It's more like zaden and violet. And there's also, all the tropes that I love, which is. All the different creatures, all the good creatures, all the bad creatures, all the magical powers, all the different lands. But then I also love the city setting. I went to NYU and fell very in love with New York and miss it every day. Love LI love the weather, but I do miss New York. And so in some ways, even though it's a totally different city, this is like a love letter to New York. And so there's also a lot of scenes that I love throughout the trilogy, at cute little wine bars downtown and like the upper, west side imagine sort of version of the city. And there's a museum that sort of serves as like My Met or Smithsonian that, she works at by day as an assistant and a nightclub that is sort of like seedy and twisted with an interesting nightclub owner. It's a, I think it's like the richest world that I have written thus far. And I've had so much fun with it. And yes, it's the first of a trilogy. It comes out February 17th. The good news is the second and the third really don't take that long. If you are a fan of my work and had read my previous trilogy, they came out every six months. It's not quite that quick, but it is less than like a year apart between each one. So people will not have to wait too long. Yeah, that's sort of, that's the premise.

I think that this book is a great entry level for someone who's intimate by romantasy see, who think like this is gonna be a high, hard world building and like hard stuff to learn like this feels very grounded in reality. And it's a great entry point for those who are like, I'm Tim everyone to see. I don't know what to do. This is urban fantasy, which is, set in a city, set in a world that you may understand, you may find yourself living in this world and then all the creatures are happening. And I think it has the elements of the school and the elements of the city life that helps you just go into this world and just dive into it.

Oh, thank you. Yes, that was what I was going for.

Yes. Yeah. So it's it's more like I I it's the kind of fantasy that I love because I love the fact, It's hard for me to get into a different world, a different, like understanding those different things. I'm like, no, I just need to be grounded in reality and then have like werewolf and demons and vampires and stuff like that, and this was like such a relief when I, like I started reading, I was like, oh, this is the kind of one that I like.

Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, it's like fantasy light. They can text, they can email, like people can, use cars. I wrote, my first trilogy is in a world where, it's like medieval fantasy. It's Unicorns and roses. Played a prisoner, like any of those kind of, I'm thinking about the books that really inspired me. There's no modern conveniences and that can be very escapist and fun, but it was so fun to write this. It's our world. People are going to the movie theater, but then there are demons at the movie theater, it's like we just up it a little bit.

Yes. It's like a grownup, Buffy,

Correct. I mean, arguably my favorite TV show of all time. A lot of Buffy influence in this book.

Awesome. All right, so what kind of books do you tend to read? Do you read Fantasy romance or just out there thrillers,

what if I was like, I don't read it all. I've never read a book. I always think about that. Like when, 'cause it's so sad when you start writing a lot, your reading goes down so much. I used to be. I mean, this is nothing compared to I'm sure your listeners lots of readers who read way more than this, but I used to read like a book a week. There was like always some book on my bedside table that has died, that has gone out the window since I started writing, which is a tragedy. Before I started writing, I was like exclusively fantasy, including this kind of fantasy, like more, grounded fantasy. And romance and I would sort of just take turns each time. I'd read like a fun paperback, contemporary romance, and then I'd read like a big fantasy trilogy and then sort of like a pallet cleanser, romance. And that was my, that was the zone I lived in. Candidly, since writing, I find it really hard to read in the genre I'm writing in. So when I was writing the Sacred Stone series, that was the Dawn of Onyx and the other two in the series, I really kind of stopped reading fantasy and I only read contemporary romance. And then when I started writing, if Not for my baby, which was my contemporary romance, I kind of couldn't read contemporary romance anymore. And. I was still sort of working on Half City as well, so I kind of still couldn't read fantasy and so you're, you'll be surprised, you kind of guessed it. I mostly read thrillers now because it sort of checks the box of like heart pounding, edge of your seat in the way fantasy and romance do. But it doesn't feel like I'm always thinking about how it relates to my work, or, if you read in the, at least for me, if I read in the genre that I'm writing, my brain can only go two ways. It's either. Oh, why didn't I think of that? Or, I wish that I had done that. Or, oh my God, that thing, that moment was so swoony I wish I hadn't read it so I could have come up with it, or whatever. Or it's oh, people are gonna think because I read this, I took from this, or this is so similar. Oh God, does this compare to my book? It's so hard to not think like that. So yes, right now I'm mostly reading thrillers, however, my hope is. I'm currently on deadline for the last book in the series which is crazy 'cause you guys haven't even read the first one and I'm writing the last one. But when that is done, I'm really hoping to take a little break and get in back into my fantasy roots. It's been a long time since I read like a great big fantasy series, so I'm gonna try to go back to that when I'm not actively on deadline anymore.

Yes, and there's quite a few new ones, so you have.

I'm so behind. If I were to tell you all the amazing books that I have not read, I would be excommunicated from the Fantasy community.

Yes, my email is like full of romantic.

There's so many.

there's so many. I was like, I remember being dire need like 10 years ago and only reading like three fancy. Now it's it's the whole world.

completely. Like when I discovered, A Court of Thorns and roses and then I read a lot of Jennifer Armentrout, and then I read

Yeah.

Twister series and Carrie Maniscalco, and that was sort of my that those were, that was my formative experience in fantasy romance. But then there weren't that many other options now. You couldn't, if you tried, you could never read everything that's out there.

They're now like 15.

Yeah. I know everyone's growing up, which I do 'cause I mean, as I get older, I want the characters to get older. In fact, in my in half city, she was originally like 27, then because of the college element, we had to age her down. But yeah, I'm sort of like next time we're gonna get older and older with each

I'm glad that you're writing in this genre, and I'm glad you're adding more to the genre than needed. But it's a wonderful time to be in a romance, see or fantasy, a fantasy, romance, or urban fantasy reader, like any type of fantasy specific place.

Well, that was also another reason why I was really excited about this because I felt a little like. I can't compete with all of the fantasy romance anymore. There's so much Faye, there's so much sort of sword and sandal dragon, like big fantasy. I don't wanna keep trying, I did that with Dawn of Onyx We had dragons. We had swords, we had Faye and I sort of felt like maybe urban fantasy is a way to stay in this space that I love and appeal to the readers that I connect with and that like my work and that we all read the same sort of things. Do something that maybe is a little bit different. I think obviously like I'm not breaking the mold at all with urban fantasy, but at least it's sort of like a sub genre of the big genre and that, I hope, I mean, it's way too early to be talking about anything else, but the next trilogy that I wanna write after this is another version of stepping a little more outside of the fantasy romance space and like trying to push the boundaries every time so it feels a little new and fresh.

I'm an urban fantasy. If I have to choose a type of one, like I love, I want Ilona Long I love Hidden Legacy series. I love the Guild Hunters. I'm not a psychangeling. I know blasphemy, but I love the Hidden, like I love the side of New York. I love the greediness. City and the specifics, and coexisting. I'm a city girl. I lived in New York for a long time, and so I love the idea of having this other world coexist and not bigger grittiness of a city. And so when I look at fantasy I, it's hard for me to understand this whole world that I'm learning. I'm like, no, I just wanna know some basic things and then have this world on top of it. Kind of like a overlay of what you're learning,

yeah. Yeah. No, I feel the exact same way.

So, Kate, tell us where you can find out why.

Yes. Okay. You can mostly find me on Instagram. That's where I'm most active. Kate Golden author at Kate Golden author. I am also on TikTok though. It's run by my pa, but we post a lot of really fun reels and it's. Teaser spoiler, spicy tiktoks. You can find me there on at Kate Golden author. And then the last place is my newsletter, which is my Substack newsletter. It's called Kate Dates. You can find it just by Googling like Kate Dates Substack, or you can find it through the link in my bio on Instagram. I send one every other month, there's six a year. It will not cloud your inbox, but I put all the best like arc giveaways and art and if you wanna get early copies of things or read teasers, all the best goodies are in the newsletter.

Perfect. Thank you, Kate for being in the shower.

Yes. Thank you so much for having me. This was such a blast.

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