Author Kate Risse On The 5 Things You Need to Know to Become a Great Author

An Interview With Rachel Kline

Keep writing and don’t worry if it’s not perfect: It’s important to get stuff out on the page. Know that you will change it, erase it, or put it somewhere else in the text.

As part of my interview series on the five things you need to know to become a great author, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kate Risse.

Kate Risse teaches Spanish language and culture at Tufts University. She lives with her family in Brookline, Massachusetts, and spends time on Dog Island and in the mountains of Vermont.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you share a story about what brought you to this particular career path?

I wrote fiction in my twenties and published a few short stories. Then I went to grad school and published academic articles on Latin American culture: literature and history. But I always craved the creative process of conjuring worlds. I’ve belonged to the same writing group for 35 years, on and off of course. That camaraderie, inspiration, and support helped me get off the ground and write fiction again. Members of my writing group were with me for the entire trajectory, the hundreds of edits, of Inland.

Can you share the most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career?

My novel is based on the many road trips I’ve taken from Boston to the Florida Panhandle Gulf Coast. I have seen so many amazing things, and met so many interesting people, during these journeys. But the American landscape really sticks out: the Georgia saltmarshes; the original Native American trails: canopy roads out of Tallahassee, the Natchez Trace; Virginia countryside; tupelo and pecan groves; Wakulla Springs, the largest and deepest freshwater spring in the world. While these aren’t “one story that occurred to me,” the landscapes tell their own stories, they’ve hit me hard and impacted my writing deeply.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey to becoming an author? How did you overcome it? Can you share a story about that that other aspiring writers can learn from?

I teach at a university and am deeply committed to that. Academia and fiction writing may seem to share elements. But I found the two worlds to be different. It was hard to simultaneously navigate both. To go from teaching a book to sitting down and writing one gave me pause. However, I learned to shift into the world of the creator rather than the one who analyzes and interprets. I got up very early in the morning to write and was able to separate my two worlds, which I think is important. You have to be in your fiction 100% without the distractions of something else.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Right out of college, I got a job working in the office of Partisan Review, one of the oldest, most renowned, and established literary journals. I thought I had hit the jackpot of first jobs out of college. It turned out to be an absolute nightmare. The two editors (married), William Phillips and Edith Kurzweil, weren’t the most sympathetic people I’d ever met, which is an understatement. They were utterly clueless about how the journal got put together every couple of months. They’d come to the office occasionally. She’d lie on her couch and browse literary journals, throw them at her feet, and then call me in to pick them up and shelve them. He had me make smoked salmon and butter sandwiches, all the while Boston’s literati would sift through the office, making the rounds: Rosanna Warren, Robert Pinsky, Saul Bellow, Derek Walcott; I was intercepting letters from Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera, Joyce Carol Oats, and immediately sending them to the editors. From the outside it looked like a fabulous job: the New York Intellectuals. I was absolutely miserable. Wasn’t funny then but it is now. Point being; don’t do what looks good on the outside. Go with your heart and stick with kind, authentic people, especially when you’re young. Find people who mentor you rather than berate you.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Well, I’ve just published my novel, Inland, so I’m reading and doing podcasts. I’m thinking about a sequel to Inland or a thriller.

Can you share the most interesting story that you shared in your book?

Sea level rise is upon us, 128 degrees F in India, 7 consecutive days of 115 F or higher in Las Vegas last week, and flooding again in central Vermont and multiple places worldwide. We are watching a political convention this week in which the candidates’ platforms have no mention whatsoever of a changing climate. In fact, the slogan there is Drill Baby Drill!: absolutely surreal.

What is the main empowering lesson you want your readers to take away after finishing your book?

Humans are resilient. We have the smarts and the engineering ability to change, adapt, and mitigate crises. Let’s get going, people!

Based on your experience, what are the “5 Things You Need to Know to Become a Great Author”?

1. Carve out time and a place: I get up at 5 am and write at a comfortable desk with a view of my garden.

2. Follow your heart and don’t be too swayed by other people’s ideas or pressure: I’ve been told to move in certain directions; areas of the globe I should highlight; such and such is a hot topic. Nonsense. Go with what you know and feel.

3. Do your research: Again, go with what you know and perfect that knowledge, learn about it, and read about it.

4. Keep writing and don’t worry if it’s not perfect: It’s important to get stuff out on the page. Know that you will change it, erase it, or put it somewhere else in the text. I find this particularly true with dialogue. Dialogue is a shape-shifting exercise where you literally have to write, cut, and reword as your characters begin to take on a life of their own. Don’t be afraid to do this.

5. Cut, cut, cut, rewrite, reread, and edit: The manuscript is alive, it moves, it changes, it surprises you. Go with it.

What is the one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a great writer? (i.e. perseverance, discipline, play, craft study). Can you share a story or example?

Honestly, perseverance and believing in the book; I just kept on pounding the pavement.

Which literature do you draw inspiration from? Why?

I love Latin American and Spanish literature: Juan Rulfo and Octavio Paz, Cervantes, Ramón Sender, Carlos Ruiz Zafón the list goes on. But I also love contemporary American literature: Octavia Butler, Jeanine Cummins, Jennifer Egan, Sandra Newman, there are so many… Lately, I’ve been delving into cli-fi: Kim Stanley Robinson, Lily Brooks-Dalton. This is a growing and interesting genre.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Electrify the grid, get rid of cars run on fossil fuels, and insert into all education, in every grade, a robust and realistic, science-based curriculum around climate change and how to prepare ourselves for what’s coming at us NOW. Not in the future. It’s here, folks. Just step outside. Education really is key.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Katerisse.com, @katherine.risse, 12willows, https://12willowspress.com/home/books/inland/

Thank you so much for this. This was very inspiring!