For the community connection assignment I chose to interview Katie Cross. Katie Cross is an author who writes young adult fantasy books including the Network series beginning with the book Miss Mabel’s School for Girls. Her responsibilities are to write as well as to indie-publish her books. Katie Cross is a #1 bestseller in Amazon fantasy as well as Kobo young adult; she has also won awards such as the IAN 2015 Outstanding Fantasy Award and the Wattpad “Best of HQ Love” Watty Awards in 2015.

I chose to interview Katie Cross because I am interested in writing and she is a very good author who’s work I admire. I reached out to her because I wanted to learn about what it takes to write books as well as to see someone’s experience in writing as a career. I read some of her books from the network series and they were very enjoyable and interesting to me which is why she is an author that I would want to learn from; in addition to that she is very friendly and approachable, making her someone that I would not hesitate to reach out to. I am interested in many options for possible paths that I might want to take in the future and having this assignment gave me a great opportunity to learn a lot about what being an author is like.

 

 

                                         

      The Interview:

These are the questions I asked her:

• Why are you passionate about your job?
• What obstacles have you faced to get you where you are today?
• What advice would you pass on to someone interested in what you are doing?
• Would you be open to further contact from Riverside students and if so, how can someone contact you?
• What inspired you to pursue this as a career?
• When did you know that this is what you wanted to do?

Her response video:

 

What I learned from the interview:

This interview provided me with a lot of insights into what it’s like being an author and was overall very helpful and taught me a lot. The thing that spoke to me the most in her response was when she was talking about how many people can use her books to escape from reality and how much of an impact books have on people. It made me realize that being an author is something that can make a difference and help many people through hard times as well as really contributing to their happiness if they are able to get joy from your books. This connects to my interest in writing because it showed me that stories are extremely important and can help so many people which is a benefit to being an author that this video taught me. I learned that to be an author it is really good to read a lot of books that interest you and write as much as you can; I can relate to this piece of advice because when I read, I draw inspiration from the book and become inspired, so I can see how reading a lot can get lead you towards being a better writer.

This interview has inspired me to start writing more because it is something that I really enjoy doing in my spare time and after this assignment I have seen more benefits that come with writing. This has inspired me to experiment with writing and see if it’s something that I want to do.

 

If you are interested in Katie’s work, here is her website where you can find more information about her and her books: https://kcrosswriting.com/

 

Image citations:

Pile of books – Pexels – Pixabay

Student Typing Keyboard – Pixabay – StartupStockPhotos

Photo of Katie and book cover – Katie Cross