Hello and welcome to my blog, fellow writers. Thank you for joining me today for my interview with emerging author, Kathy Istace. Kathy is also the adoptive mother of three children, a part-time veterinary dental technician, and a speaker, blogger, and marathon runner.
Kathy Istace writes horror, fantasy, historical fiction, and nonfiction. Her fiction has been published in A Face in the Mirror, a Hook on the Door: An Anthology of Urban Legends and Modern Folklore; FellowScript; Night Chillers: Voyage into the Macabre; Coast to Coast: Canadian Stories; lit.cat; twosentencestories.com; fridayflashfiction.com; and she is a Reader's Choice Award Winner on indiesunlimited.com. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in Pet Rescue Magazine, AHT News, Alberta Veterinary Medical Association Magazine, Veterinary Technician magazine, Veterinary Technician Journal, Canadian Vet Tech magazine, and she has written a chapter in the textbook Small Animal Dental Procedures for Veterinary Technicians and Nurses published by Wiley-Blackwell. Find her on Twitter: @KathyIstace. Nina Faye Morey: I introduced you as an emerging author, i.e., someone who hasn’t yet published a book but whose writing has been published in periodicals, journals, and anthologies. Is that how you’d describe yourself at this stage in your writing career? Kathy Istace: That sounds accurate. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I was first published (in a national fiction and poetry anthology) when I was 15 years old, but try as I might, I still haven’t been able to pick up an agent yet for any of my novels. I’m currently working on my third novel, so here’s hoping third time’s the charm! However, I just signed a contract for a nonfiction book: An Introductory Guide to Pet Dental Care with CABI books. NFM: How and when did you first discover the power of words and that you wanted to become a writer? KI: I think I first fell in love with stories even before I could read. I remember drawing pictures and then dictating the story so my mom could write the text beneath. My first ‘book’ was about a little girl and boy who befriend a dragon, and then, at the end, are eaten by the dragon. My storytelling style hasn’t changed much! But the moment when I first realized I could be a writer, that I had something in me that other people could enjoy, was when I was in second grade. We were given an assignment to write a short story including a beginning, middle, and conclusion. I worked on it all weekend, but on Monday when it came time to turn in our papers, I was dismayed to see that I’d done it wrong. Everyone else showed up with a few paragraphs of work, whereas I handed in a 10-page tome titled “The Witching Hour.” But I felt much better when later that week, my teacher assembled the whole school in the gym and read my story aloud to everyone. I was elementary-school famous! NFM: What books or authors have had the greatest influence on you as a writer? KI: If you can’t tell by the above answers, I’m a big fan of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. My favourite authors are Stephen King and Anne Rice, but surprisingly, though I consistently enjoy their books, my very favourite novels have no elements of fantasy in them at all. My all-time fave is To Kill a Mockingbird, and my second (though it’s definitely not PC) is Gone With the Wind. I’m a big fan of strong but flawed female characters, and that’s the sort of main character I tend to write about. I gravitate toward books set in interesting or pivotal times in history: turning points in technology, race or gender relations, or the fall of a paradigm. I’m also a huge Potterhead, and was greatly influenced by C.S Lewis and Tolkien as a kid. NFM: Your writing has been published in a number of print and online publications, and you’ve written a chapter in a textbook for veterinary technicians and nurses. Please tell us a bit about these writing and publishing experiences. KI: Writing nonfiction articles is fun and easy for me. Because I’ve been in the veterinary dental industry for two decades, I have plenty of contacts in the publishing world on that side, and I’m often commissioned to write rather than having to write and then seek publication. Writing for a textbook was tough: so many references, so many hoops to jump through, everything has to be extremely well-researched and precise. And we recently had to go back and update it all with new surgical techniques, drug protocols, etc. for the second edition, which will be out later in 2020. Writing fiction is a different beast. I am now a rejection-letter veteran! I’d probably be published more than I am if I were better at writing short stories, but it seems most of my plots are supersized. When I do write poetry or shorter fiction, I’ve been able to get most of them published from one or two submissions. But breaking into traditional book publishing is something I’ve yet to manage, and I don’t think I have the kind of social skills or business acumen to make a go of self-publishing. I was originally writing for the YA market because I like fiction about teenagers (they make a lot of bad choices!), but due to a lack of interest from agents and comments from some of my beta readers, I’m going to try my hand at adult fiction instead. Maybe I’ll have better luck there. NFM: You’ve already written a few fiction and nonfiction books, and I believe you also have at least one current WIP. Could you tell us just a wee bit about them? KI: My first novel is a YA time travel story set in ancient Egypt, in the time of Tutankhamun. I’m a bit of an Egyptophile, and I’ve studied eighteenth dynasty Egyptian history extensively. The main character is a god who thinks she’s a twenty-first century human teenager. I had a lot of interest in it from agents, but it turned out to be too sophisticated for what they wanted. I’m thinking about changing it up a little and then marketing it to agents as “Rick Riordan for adults.” My second novel is about the daughter of an alleged suicide bomber who attempts to clear her mother’s name with the help of a genie unleashed from an artifact she finds among her mother’s personal effects. I still think it’s a great read, but it has two major problems: 1) YA agents won’t touch anything about suicide bombers, even alleged ones, and 2) Her mother was a soldier in Iraq, which, for obvious reasons, no one wants anything to do with that right now. And you’d be surprised how many YA agents say NO MILITARY STORIES in their MSWL. So let’s just say I’ve discovered how current events and people’s squeamishness about difficult topics can derail hopes for publication. Lesson learned: I will stick to uncontroversial topics/places from here on out. I may pop that one onto Wattpad or some other platform for kicks. My WIP is an adult historical fiction novel based on the true story of the woman banned from competing in the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896, but who ran it anyway. It’s a fascinating story that way too many people, even in the running community, know nothing about. My current nonfiction project is the aforementioned An Introductory Guide to Pet Dental Care. It will be marketed to veterinary clinics as an aid to educating veterinary technicians, front office staff, and clients on different dental pathologies, prevention, and treatments. NFM: Describe your writing process. For instance, are you a plotter or pantser? When, where, and for how long do you like to write when you’re working on a book or novel? KI: I’m definitely a plotter. I research everything meticulously (I think in another life I would have loved to be a researcher for other novelists), anything from daily life in eighteenth dynasty Egypt to the origin of djinn, to which streets the upper class built their homes on in nineteenth-century Athens. My plots grow from my research, and though I might not have an idea of every scene of every chapter, I usually have a planned goal and obstacle for my main character(s) in every chapter. And I always know how it ends! I write wherever I can. Since I have three school-age kids, take care of my best friend’s toddler, work part-time, run, blog, and sometimes even manage to clean the house, I have to be flexible. Most of the time, you’ll find me cross-legged on the couch with my laptop and the TV tuned to some cartoon while chaos brews in the background. I can knock out three or four hours of writing one thing before my brain screams to move onto something else, so it’s good that I can bounce between fiction and nonfiction. I’ve tried to write early in the morning or after the kids go to bed to have some peace and quiet, but usually I’m way too exhausted at both of those times. NFM: What do you find the most enjoyable about the writing process, and what is the most difficult part for you? KI: I love writing stories! No part is unenjoyable. Even editing and cutting are satisfying. The part I hate is writing query letters, synopses, researching agents, emailing out my hopeful queries, and then getting the inevitable rejections. Basically, I hate everything after writing the words “THE END.” But if I ever want to get my novels out into the world, I have to suck it up. To paraphrase Thoreau: We only hit what we aim at. I’m trying to perfect my aim. NFM: Do your characters tend to resemble you or people in your life in any way, and how do you manage to get into the heads of your male characters? KI: My characters usually have at least one personality trait or peculiarity of mine, or that of someone I know. But most of my characters tend to jump, fully-formed, into my head. Their traits are usually determined by what they want, and what they have to go through to get it. Characters and plot are my strengths, it’s description that I really have to work hard at. I’ve never thought too much about writing male characters versus female characters; we’re all human (and I’ve written plenty of nonhuman characters as well) and though gender does play a part in how we think and act, I don’t think we’re so different. I have been told by some of my male beta readers that I’m pretty good at writing male characters. Maybe it’s because I’m not a particularly girly-type girl, or maybe it’s because I read a lot of male authors. Or maybe I’m not that good and they’re just being nice! NFM: You’ve done some extensive travelling around the world. Have any of these places or experiences made their way into your novels? KI: Yes, I’ve travelled to both Egypt and Greece, among other fascinating places, and travel really helps me ground my stories in reality. Some of them need more grounding than others. I’m a big history buff, especially ancient history, and growing up in Canada, I always felt starved for that sense of ancestry, that sense of permanence. As I said, description is not my strength, so when I can describe something I’ve actually seen or places I’ve actually been that helps a lot. NFM: You’ve also had a number of interesting life experiences. For example, you’ve acted in a pet company’s online commercial and done dental procedures on exotic animals, such as tigers and sea lions. Tell us about some of your most memorable experiences and whether any of them have or will appear in your novels? KI: It was actually an online tutorial on how to brush cats’ and dogs’ teeth, commissioned by a pet toothpaste company. As the content expert, I had to write my own script (a new experience for me), memorize it, and not only act, but act with animals! It was filmed in Montreal and was five minutes long, but it took a day and a half to film. Luckily, the animal actors were great, even if the human (me) was a newb. My work in the veterinary dental field is anything but boring! I’ve cleaned teeth and assisted in a root canal on a 300-pound tiger at the Edmonton Valley Zoo (she was scary until she was asleep, and her paws were as big as my head), and I’ve assisted in extractions on sea lions at the West Edmonton Mall Sea Lions exhibit (less scary but just as big). That one felt like cowboy medicine. We had to cart all of our dental and anesthesia equipment to the mall ourselves, and instead of using our wall-mounted digital dental X-ray unit, we had to borrow a portable horse X-ray machine and use old-fashioned dental films. We also had to extract teeth while kneeling on baffle boards on a concrete floor! That experience did wind up as a case report in a veterinary dental magazine. I’ve also worked on monkeys, lemurs, and even a porcupine. An animal or two usually appear in my books, but I haven’t based them on any of my patients (yet). NFM: Do you have a network of writing friends or beta readers? If so, how have they helped you to become a better writer? KI: I actually don’t have many IRL writer friends, but I do belong to several online writing message boards and Facebook groups. My beta readers are my hapless husband and several of my closest friends who are big readers. I’ve also used the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Manuscript Reading Service, and I found that feedback valuable. That reader was the one who first suggested my Egyptian book might be a better fit with an adult audience. NFM: Did you seek any professional advice before you sent queries out to agents and publishers? If so, what advice did you receive and have you found it helpful? KI: I’ve used both Jane Friedman and QueryShark for query letter and synopsis critiques. Both were very helpful since querying stresses me out, and it was heartening to know I’d worked with professionals to craft the very best queries that I could. My tendency runs to wordiness, and in both cases, they were able to help me cut down my queries to a manageable word count and make them snappier. But since I’m still unagented, I can say that even working with the best doesn’t guarantee anything. But I’ve learned enough now through the process that I think I’ll be able to write my next query on my own. NFM: You’ve received some requests from agents and/or publishers to submit your manuscripts and book proposals. How have you found these experiences so far? KI: Submitting full manuscripts was great … at the beginning. I allowed myself to get overly excited, and I had stopped submitting queries to other agents during that time. I won’t make that mistake again! One of the agents I submitted a full manuscript to loved the novel, but the massive changes she wanted just didn’t feel right. That’s when I first suspected I might be better off writing adult rather than YA fiction. Later, that was confirmed. In contrast, writing a nonfiction book proposal was pretty easy since I’d already been approached by the publisher at a conference. They told me what they were looking for and asked if I would be willing to submit a proposal based on their guidelines. I did have to outline my previous publishing experience and credentials, a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the contents, and provide a list of other veterinary dental professionals they could run my proposal by to see if it covered all the bases. Approval of the proposal took about three months. Now I’ve got to start writing the thing! NFM: You’re also a very committed runner and marathoner. Why did you start running, and how did you decide to participate in marathons? KI: Well, yes, I am a runner, but I haven’t run a full marathon yet. I’ve run hundreds of races and about twenty half marathons, but injuries have always prevented me from going a full 42 kilometers. In fact, I’m recovering from peroneal tendinitis right now! I hope to complete my first marathon while writing my book about the first female marathoner. I originally started running to get in shape for my wedding. I’ve always been thin, but I wanted to be in really great shape. And I’ve never been much for sports, but once I started running, I fell in love! I ran a charity 5K fun run soon after and got bit by the racing bug, too. That was over twenty years ago, and over the years, my motivation to run has changed dramatically. Now, I run for my mental health and some much-needed alone time. I don’t feel like myself when I can’t run. It would be like not brushing my teeth. NFM: You recently started a blog on the topic of winter running. What is the name and address of your blog? What have you talked about in some of your most recent posts? KI: My blog is Hypothermic Runner at https://hypothermicrunner.weebly.com. One of my most recent posts is about getting an attitude adjustment after feeling sorry for myself about my injury. Some of my other posts include “How I Fight my SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) with Running,” “How I Dress to Run in -20C,” and “Acclimatization So Winter Running Doesn’t Suck.” NFM: What other hobbies or activities do you enjoy when you’re not writing or running? KI: I’m a huge nerd, so lately, you’d find me in front of the TV watching one of the new Star Treks. I’ve even sucked my ten-year-old daughter into watching ST: Discovery and ST: Picard! I’m also a big fan of The Mandalorian, The Witcher, and (way out in left field), The Young Pope. And since I’ve been recovering from my injury, I’ve been doing a lot of physio and strength training, which I hate but have come to realize are necessary. And reading, of course! I just finished The House of Silk, a Sherlock Holmes novel by Anthony Horowitz. NFM: Do you have any writing advice or something further that you’d like to share? KI: I wish I were seasoned enough to dole out advice! I guess what I’d like to share is if you’re hoping to go the traditional publishing route and feel like you’re banging your head against the gates, you’re not alone. I’m right here with you, trying to write while working a day job and taking care of kids and being too introverted and tired and busy to do much else. And after another rejection letter, we’ll both pick ourselves up and bang some more until those gates finally open. Thank you, Kathy, for agreeing to do this interview for my blog and for sharing your writing experience and insights with my audience. I’ve enjoyed this opportunity to get to know more about you and your work, and I wish you all the best in your future writing endeavours.
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Nina Faye Morey is a Canadian freelance writer, editor, and artist. Archives
April 2020
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