Kat Howard: On Listening to Reader Feedback
Author Kat Howard discusses how one book became a series with her new fantasy novel, A Sleight of Shadows.
Kat Howard’s short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, anthologized in best of and annual best of collections, and performed on NPR. You can find it in her collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Roses and Rot and the Alex Award–winning An Unkindness of Magicians. She is also one of the writers of the Books of Magic series, set in the Sandman Universe.
In this post, Kat discusses how one book became a series with her new fantasy novel, A Sleight of Shadows, her advice for other writers, and more!
Name: Kat Howard
Literary agent: Alexandra Levick at Writers House
Book title: A Sleight of Shadows
Publisher: Saga Press, an imprint of Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster
Release date: April 25, 2023
Genre/category: Fantasy
Previous titles: An Unkindness of Magicians, Roses and Rot, The End of the Sentence, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, The Sandman Universe: Books of Magic
Elevator pitch for the book: Return to Kat Howard’s Alex Award–winning world begun in An Unkindness of Magicians, a secret society of power-hungry magicians in New York City.
What prompted you to write this book?
Some of it was a love for the main character, Sydney. I had thought of An Unkindness of Magicians as a standalone, but I did leave a tiny door cracked open at the end, just in case I was able to return one day. And then an early reader—Adrienne Celt, who is a writer I really admire—said she’d love to read a sequel. That sort of crystalized things for me, and I spoke to my editor, and here we are.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I think it was early 2017 that I had a firm go-ahead to write the sequel, so about six years, which was longer than I wanted it to be. But I knew I had to do justice to the story, I knew I had to get it right, and so even though it was frustrating, I kept writing and rewriting until it did.
The idea changed a lot—I threw out an entire draft that hinged on a magical plague because it felt too close to the COVID pandemic. And it kept changing—a minor character became major, two characters that survived until the penultimate draft got killed off in the final version. Like I said, I needed to get it right.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Honestly, not really. This is my fourth book with Saga, and with my editor, Joe Monti, and so I feel like I basically understand what to expect from the process at this point. (Watch, now something completely unexpected will happen with the next one.)
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Not surprises I feel so much as firm reminders of things I had known—that the story takes the time it takes, that it’s better to take the time to get it right than to have a book that I feel doesn’t do right by the characters and story. And that for me, the solution is just to write my way through things. In the end, I do have a book that I am really proud of and tells the story I wanted to tell.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope they enjoy the reading experience. Well, maybe not enjoy—there are definitely places where I hope they are sad or angry or other non-happy emotions. I hope they think it’s a good story, one that makes them keep turning the pages to see what happens next, and I hope they think it was worth waiting for.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Well, this is something that I struggle with myself, so this is advice I am reminding myself to take, but: Give yourself grace when the writing is difficult.
It’s so hard to do this sometimes, because there can be so many internal and external pressures, and I don’t at all mean to diminish those. But pushing yourself to breaking doesn’t serve the work—believe me, I know. So, let yourself rest, get up from the desk, refill the well, be human. It will help you, and it will help your story.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
