Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My name’s Katya, I live in a city called Johannesburg in South Africa and this question is already making me shy because Ash Rising is my first novel. Well, I mean, it depends on who you ask. According to my desk’s drawer I have finished about three novels over the years but this is the first one I’ve actually had the guts to put out. So let’s see how that goes. As for me? Typical left-handed right-brained crazy. Myer Briggs would call me an ENFP unicorn (although the first time I took that test in a job interview I broke it) and William Moulton Marston would call me a ‘high I’. Most people are just surprised I pay taxes.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I have always loved fairy tale retellings and adaptations, especially the risky-yet-beautiful efforts like Oyeyemi’s Boy Snow Bird. One day I had a dream (not like a Martin Luther King Jr. dream, like a lying down and snoring dream) about this freakishly huge pumpkin from a science experiment gone wrong and this dystopian fairy tale world gone mad and I just knew that I had to write it.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Two words guys: left-handed problems. The struggle is real. I would love to sit on a park bench and write down literary thoughts in a moleskin…except that the literary thoughts are smudged by the time I’m on the third syllable. So, I would love to have unusual writing habits but I am sadly exiled to boring ol’ laptopping. Except, okay, sometimes I really need to get up and make myself a bowl of chocolate icing before the plot can progress. But that’s normal right?
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I think that, if you’re doing life right, all the authors and books influence you. The good, the forgettable, the downright bad… especially the bad, if you’re a writer. Margaret Atwood has made me want to write so much that it burns, same for Anita Brookner. Madeline Miller’s Circe was just wow… And this is going to sound very bad, but I was very positively influenced by Twilight in university. I opened it and read some of the character development and some of the, um, plot and I was like ‘I can really do this’.
What are you working on now?
Ashes Slowly Fall, the sequel to Ash Rising. I’m so excited, it’s allowing me to delve way deeper into one of my favorite characters from the first one, Vanita. It’s a sweet side character getting her own show and becoming much grittier, darker and more complex. Without giving too much away, the Bene Gesserit and The Hatchet really influenced this one a lot. It’s gonna be good!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I trained as a journalist and so I firmly believe that relationship is everything. Awesome Gang is (obviously) awesome and so are Amazon ads and KDP Select, but my main method is having conversations with the following I’ve built over the years of people who’ve loved my stories. Communicating to them over email in an honest, relationship-centered way about any new or old projects is hands down the best promotional tool I have and it feels authentic to both me and them. You can find out more at https://katyastead.wixsite.com/katyalebeque
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Good grief, I have no idea how qualified I would be to give advice. I think my advice for author-ing is the same as my advice for all walks of life: everything comes out better when you enjoy it and everything comes out better when you’re not freaking out. So be kind to yourself. Not super scientific – but hey, works for me.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
It changes from day to day. Yesterday the best advice I’d ever heard was ‘everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end.’ Today the best advice is ‘dry your hair with a T-shirt instead of a towel so it doesn’t frizz.’
What are you reading now?
I have no problem with monogamy when it comes to people, but with books I have commitment issues. In my current harem are Madeline Miller’s Circe (again because I love it), Mary Stewart’s Arthur books and Peter Brett’s The Daylight War. I recently finished Exhibit Alexandra and The Toymakers which I enjoyed a lot too.
What’s next for you as a writer?
There are a couple of projects to complete after Ashes Slowly Fall. I have a full-length novel called How To Survive Becoming Spiritual that has survived its first professional edit that I need to work on, and another still ind rafting stages about an AI-powered clone created to replace a missing movie star.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
That is TERRIBLE. No one with any shred of compassion should ask this question.
I am going to my island now and not talking to you.
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