Kate Hewitt – Intensely Emotional Reads

USA Today best-selling author Kate Hewitt seems to have “done it all.” She’s a busy vicar’s wife raising five children, and “between meals” she’s also written more than 60 books in multiple genres – from classic romance to intensely emotional women’s fiction  and historical family sagas. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Kate talks about how life – and publishing – is constantly changing, staying ahead of the curve, and the mystery in her own life that might make a story sometime. Six Things You’ll Discover in this Joys of Binge Reading Episode: How she adapts to the fast changing publishing scene Why she likes to write in many different genres Why women’s fiction is her first love Getting a start writing short stories The mystery in her own life that could make a story Writing more than 60 books while raising five children Where to find Kate Hewitt (also writing as Katherine Schwartz) :  Website: https://kate-hewitt.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateHewittAuthor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/katehewitt1 What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Kate. .  Hello there Kate and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us Kate: Thanks for having me Jenny, it’s great to be here! Author Kate Hewett Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon A Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if there was a catalyst, what was it? Kate: Well, I’ve always written something since I was quite small; plays, poetry, newspaper articles. Ever since I was about 6, I always wanted to be a writer of some sort. Probably a very early catalyst was my brother, who wrote a short story and got a lot of attention for it. I decided I wanted to write a story too! So I wrote a story when I was about 5- it was one sentence long. My father read it, and I think that was the beginning of it all! Jenny: How amazing, and how lovely that your dad took it seriously! Kate: He did, yes! When I was about 6 I wrote a longer story, and put on a cover on it. I made it very official looking, and then I wrote on the cover “By the author of the Christmas Rose”. Everyone kind of joked that I was into marketing at a very early age!   Jenny: You have a kicker line that you write “emotional stories in a number of genres” – and you’re not wrong – everything from women’s fiction to historicals, contemporary series, and classic Harlequin romance of the “wooed by a desert sheikh” kind. I guess they each appeal to you as a writer for different reasons . . . tell us a bit about the different challenges of  each one – and what aspect of your life they appeal to most . . . Kate: I think I like writing different genres because I really like the emotional womens’ fiction I do, although it’s quite draining. So to be able to switch from that, to something lighter is kind of like a palate cleanser writing wise, so I enjoy that. I started writing classic Harlequin Romance because I read those when I was a teenager, but to be perfectly frank I really started writing those because I’d read that that was the best chance of a steady income as a writer, and that’s what I wanted. They have a little more of a “swept away” element to them, but I’d say my heart is more with the emotional womens’ fiction; the Jodi Picault style of writing. Jenny: Yes, and I was amused to see in one of your blogs that you were saying that investing the time in your most recent book I think- it was a bit like thinking like Jodi Picault for a change! Kate: Yes. Kate Hewitt – Harlequin Romance Jenny: I can imagine Harlequins are fun though; they’re probably only about 50,000 words are they? Kate: That’s right. Jenny: You can get them done and have a sense of accomplishment. Kate: Yes, that’s what I did like. I started writing those about 10 years ago, when I had very young children at the time and they were manageable. It was a good, steady writing income. I think I’ve written about 60 now and I am getting bit tired of the formula! So I’ll probably taper off with those, but they’ve been great while I’ve been writing them. Jenny: You must have seen quite a change in the whole Harlequin field while you’ve been doing them too, because romance has changed a tremendous lot in that decade, hasn’t it? Kate: Yes, and publishing has changed a lot with the advent of self publishing and digital publishing. It’s really in the last 10 years since I’ve been writing full time and it’s really changed. I think as an author, the challenge is to adapt and write what’s important to you, but also being able to stay current and know what’s going on. Jenny: Yes- and you’ve probably got more than one publisher I imagine in your stream? Kate: Yes. I’ve been through various publishers throughout years, and right now I write for four publishers. So yes, there’s a lot going on! Jenny: That would be very demanding in itself. And quite a lot of your “stand alone” women’s fiction is written under the pen name Katherine Schwartz; how did that come about? Kate Hewitt writing as Katherine Schwartz Kate: Katherine Schwartz is my real name, and Kate Hewitt is my pen name which I took when I began writing for Harlequin, because generally they encourage you to write under a pen name. Then when I wrote those historicals, they were really different from everything else I was writing. I thought it would be better to do it under a different name, and I wanted to use my own name for once. So that’s how that happened. Jenny: The Emigrants Trilogy- that was done under Kate Hewitt, wasn’t it? Kate: Well it was originally done under Katherine Schwartz as a magazine serial in the UK, but I extended it and self published it under Kate Hewitt since I was more well known as Kate Hewitt. Jenny: While we’re talking about that, I gather that that is also based on some of your own family history, one of the storylines for that, the first book anyway… Kate: Yes, the first book is based on my great- great- great- great aunt. The letters in the book are real letters that were kept in our family, so I was really intrigued by their romance and wanted to write about it. But the second and third books I’m afraid are completely fictionalised. Jenny: It’s amazing to have the letters though to refer back to, and it was quite a lovely story of one of your four bears leaving Scotland to go to Canada, and leaving a young woman behind with a promise that he was going to return. There was all sorts of things that happened that tended to break them apart- it wasn’t a smooth journey for the two lovers so to speak. We take communication so much for granted but when you’re trying to get hold of someone in that period and dying to have news of someone who you cared about greatly; we realise how lucky we are with the communication we have today. Kate: Yes. I think that was part of what really struck me with that story; there was no reliable mail service, it was just a matter of passing on a letter and hoping that it made its way to Canada, the settlement where they were. Actually sitting there looking at the letters, sometimes they didn’t get a letter from one another until a year and a half or something. So I can imagine that can be really difficult. Book #1 in The Emigrants Trilogy Jenny: Yes, that’s right. Jenny: The Hartley-by-the-Sea series seems to be one that is making your name at the moment – set in the Lake District – and I believe you lived in the Lake District during your years in England? Kate: Yes, we lived in the Lake District for four years. Hartley-by-the-Sea is based on the village where we lived. Jenny: Great, that’s wonderful! Jenny: Rainy Day sisters – Book One in that series – is built around love and loss – two sisters each in different ways trying to come to terms with their ambitious mother’s failures as a parent – and I guess a lot of your stories revolve around the human need to be loved, and the equally human tendency to withdraw when hurt  . .  . Kate: Yes I think that is a theme I tend to return to again and again. Especially in writing romance, the need to be loved and what keeps that from happening- I think probably I would say the two major themes are how loving involves risk, which is why I think people withdraw. Also especially in my women’s fiction, I like to write about the redemption of difficult circumstances. So I think that comes out a lot in my books. Jenny: And your new one out this month  – A Mother’s Choice – sounds like just that sort of story – “an emotional page turner” about the relationship between two women – one who gives up her child for adoption, and the other who adopts the child. You can see that on both sides, there’s room for a lot of heartache. Kate: Yes, and I think that book is probably the most emotional that I’ve written. I’ve tried to write it so the readers could identify emotionally with both women. I don’t really like writing villains as it were, but they’re really both meant to be someone that you can relate to. Jenny: As one reviewer said of your work its “feel good snuggly.”  The redemptive themes that often surface –  like in the Willoughby Close series – five books in that series now, and they’re all about women and men who’ve made mistakes or are  dealing with  tough circumstances and are changing and finding a new way – the simplest and hardest thing to do as humans but  the experience for them and us is not depressing, its  uplifting… Kate Hewitt – Willoughby Close series Kate: Yes, I know sometimes people review those books and say that they’re good, light reading. I think that they’re not that tight, because they do have the story of someone dying! Jenny: Yes, that’s right! Or recovering from a difficult sort of criminal background. They do touch on some quite tough themes as well, you’re right. Jenny: I think I read that you were first published in 1999 but many of the novels on the fiction lists seem to date from 2010 onwards.  That first decade of finding your voice – tell us more about that . . . Kate: Yes, that’s right. In those first ten years, I was pretty much writing short stories and serials for magazines which was really a great way for me to get into the business because I had a lot of young children at home. I could write in the evenings for a short period, so being able to write a short story in an evening or two and send it off was really satisfying. I didn’t really want to attempt a book at that point because I was worried I’d spend a year or two writing a book and nothing would happen with it. I just didn’t want to make that kind of commitment. So for ten years, I wrote I think about 400 short stories that were published mainly in the UK, but also in Australia and the United States, and South Africa. It was a really good experience at honing my craft and learning to plot very tightly. It was kind of like going to graduate school for creative writing! Jenny: Yes, a great experience! Tell me; do those magazines still exist now? Could somebody do that now? Kate: Yes. I mainly wrote for the People’s Friend from the UK which is still going, and I still actually write serials for them just sort of out of loyalty because they gave me my first break. Woman’s Weekly- that’s a magazine that is still around. I mean it’s not what it once was; I think the hay day was probably in the 50’s and 60’s when magazines had a lot of short story space. They attempt to be taken out now by reality TV type stories. But there’s still a market there, and a lot of romance writers and women’s fiction writers in the UK at least can get their start by writing short stories. Rainy Day Sisters – Kate Hewitt Moving to a more general focus, away from specific books to your wider career Jenny: Is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that’s been the secret to your success? Kate: Well I think what I tell aspiring authors is to finish something. I think often when you’re not published, you know what I did at the start was you write a couple of chapters of something, and then you decide “oh this isn’t really good, I’m going to start something else”. I think once you’re actually finished a book- even if it’s terrible- it gives you a sense of confidence. You realise you can do it, and so I think finishing books before I was published and then also persevering through rejection, poor sales, publishers dropping you; it’s up and down. You don’t sort of make it, and then it’s all smooth sailing for the rest of your career. So I think just plodding on and writing even when things aren’t going well is what I’d say the secret to my success is. Jenny: And you have tried your hand at self publishing along the way I guess haven’t you, when you mentioned the Emigrants series? Kate: I self published a bunch of serials that I’d written for the People’s Friend and adapted them to be a it longer to be novels. That was when the self publishing was really getting going. I think sort of another secret to my success is adapting, and seeing what is working because things are changing all the time. If something isn’t working and your books aren’t selling, I try to look and see what I need to do to sell better. I think at that point, self publishing seemed like a pretty good deal! It’s not so much any more for me, but it was for a little while. Jenny: Yes. Once again people are talking about the market place becoming filled with so many other writers- it’s hard to get yourself out there. Kate: Yes, it’s really hard. It’s even hard for someone to- and I wouldn’t say my name is super well recognised- but you know every book I write, it’s harder and harder to make a mark with it. That can be a little discouraging, but you just have to keep trying. Jenny: Is there a mystery in your own life that would make a plot line in a story? Kate: That’s an interesting question! Well I’d say there’s one thing in my history, which is that my great grandfather changed his name when he came to America from England and we don’t now who he was before, or why he changed his name. When his children asked him about it, he just said “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of”. And so that’s been a mystery in our family; nobody’s been able to figure out why he changed his name, or what his name was before. So that I think would be an interesting story to write sometime. Jenny: Most definitely! So the family line as far as you can tell stops there, because you don’t know who his parents were? Kate: That’s right; we don’t know what his real name was or anything. We haven’t been able to find out anything, so I think if I wrote it it would be completely made up. There’s just no information! But actually, there’s another thing that I used in a story in my book A Second Bride which is written as Katherine Schwartz. When we lived up in the Lake District, we had a fire in the top floor of our house. When the workman came to repair the floor, they found a death certificate hidden under the floorboards from about 1870 I think. I used that as the catalyst for my story. So it made up the reason why this death certificate would be hidden under the floorboards; I thought that was quite interesting. Women’s fiction a great love for Kate/ Katherine Jenny: Oh yes indeed, it is. Jenny: Are you living proof that women “can have it all?” What are the biggest challenges for you in balancing life as wife, mother and writer? And do you find your contemporaries are a bit “bemused” by your work load?  Kate: Yes, definitely. I think that having five children, people sort of think you’re an expert at parenting when in fact I’m just like anyone else trying to figure it all out. I don’t think anyone can have it all-you’re always going to compromise and make sacrifices in some ways. There’s been times when I’ve put my work first too much, and times when I’ve just not been able to do career wise what I would have liked to do. So it’s always a balancing act. I’m just like anybody else trying to get it right, but not always succeeding! Jenny: Yes, I can imagine. Just reverting a little to that mystery in your own life; I was noticing that your husband is somebody that you have known for a very long time, and I thought there might be story there because you were together very young, weren’t you? Kate: Well we got married in our early 20’s, but I knew him since I was a child because he was friends with my brother. But we didn’t actually start dating until after I finished university, so I was just the annoying little sister growing up! Jenny: And that was in Canada was it? Kate: No, that was in the US. I’m Canadian, but my parents moved to the United States before I was born, and then back to Canada when I went to University. Turning to Kate as reader Jenny: The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to read series . . . .So – turning to your taste in fiction who do you “binge read”  ? Kate: For romance, I really like Jessica Hart. I think she probably got me hooked back when I was a teenager. For women’s fiction, I like Emily Griffin, Jodi Picault, Jojo Moyes – I read all their books. I also like to read psychological thrillers. I tend to read just whatever is hitting the charts at the moment, and I like historicals as well. I really like C J Sansom; he writes the Matthew Shardlake mystery series. If I see a book and it looks good, I’ll read it. I tend to prefer good stories as opposed to literary muses. Jenny: So you’d see yourself as a story teller first, would that be right? Kate: Yes. Absolutely. Jojo Moyes – a Kate Hewitt favorite author Circling back to the end  (I see this as a bit of a narrative) Jenny: At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything? Kate: That’s an interesting question. I suppose I would have liked to sell more books! But that’s not really up to me. I think I maybe would have liked to slowed down and taken more time with my books, because for the last few years I’ve written probably eight books a year, and its just been sort of write one book, finish it and start the next book the next day. That’s quite hard on both me, my family and the books themselves; just being able to write the best books that I want to write. So trying to slow down and just concentrating on each book as it happens. Jenny: Goodness me, eight books a year! Give us an idea of hat your disciplined life is like to allow that to happen? Kate: Well I’m fortunate in that I can write quite quickly. I tend to write a pretty clean first draft. I do have to go back and revise, but I don’t have to go back and pull the whole book apart or anything. Now that my children are in school, I can write for about three hours a day unless I have other things on, which has been happening quite often! I suppose it’s about not wasting too much time and frittering away on the internet. But when my kids were smaller, I was actually a lot more disciplined. I would write while they were at home crawling all over me, and I would still manage to write while holding the baby and things. I couldn’t do that now! Jenny: How amazing, truly amazing! Three hours a day is very concentrated, but not huge hours. Have you found that you’ve got faster and you’ve gotten more proficient at what you do, having now written sixty books? Kate: Well the thing is, I think if I’ve thought about the story and you know where it’s going, I can write very quickly. If I’m still figuring it out and I’m not sure who the characters are, hen it’s really slow. If it’s going really slow, and I’m still figuring out who the characters are then I need some thinking time. I tend to take my dog for a walk, or do some cleaning and just let myself mull over the story for a bit because it’s not quite where it needs to be. Jenny: Do you outline before you begin? Kate: I do, but then I allow myself to deviate from it. I generally have a picture at the end of the story, and I’m sort of writing towards that last scene. Jenny: Sure. How many words a day would you normally write; do you have a word count you aim for? Kate: I do, I try to write 3000 words a day. Jenny: Wow, so that’s 1000 words an hour! That’s really motoring! Kate: When it’s working well, it’s easily done! When it’s not going well, it doesn’t always happen. Jenny: Have you ever used the talking Dragon software and tried to actually dictate a book? Kate: Yes. I tried it very briefly when I injured myself and couldn’t type for a coupe of weeks. I’ve talked to friends who say it’s really difficult at first, but then they get into it. I’ve found it really clunky in terms of when I type, it’s sort of bypassing a certain part of the brain almost. Words are just sort of flowing out. But when I have to speak them, it began to feel very awkward. But maybe if I tried more, it wouldn’t be so awkward- I don’t know. Jenny: So that injury wasn’t RSI? Kate: No, I actually got hit by a car and hurt my finger. Jenny: It wouldn’t be surprising with the amount of work you seem to be doing! Jenny: What is next for Kate as writer?  New projects under development? Kate: Yes, I’m writing a Christmas novella that’s set in the Willoughby Close world. That will be out in October, and it’s called Cupcakes For Christmas. Then I’m also finishing the latest series I was writing in the Lake District, called A Vicarage Wedding. I’ll ask be writing another book similar to A Mother’s Goodbye for my new publisher, which I haven’t even thought about yet. Book 3 in the Lake District series   Jenny: Are you hoping to get all of those finished before the end of the year? Kate: Yes. Hopefully, we’ll see! Jenny: Do you ever have time for holidays?! Kate: Yes, I actually try to take off the month of August since my kids are off school. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s the goal! Jenny: Where can readers find you on line? Kate: There’s my website, kate-hewitt.com. I’m on Twitter as @katehewitt11, I have a Facebook Page Kate Hewitt Author. I’m usually posting on that. Those are probably the three best places. Jenny: Do you have time to do social media as well as everything else? Kate: A little bit, not much. I probably post one thing a day. It takes up a lot of time, these things. Jenny: And do you keep in close contact with readers? Kate: Yes, if you write to me on my Facebook page which is how people usually contact me, or my email, I will try to respond to you within a day or two. I love hearing from readers- that’s why you do it, to share your stories with people and people tell me that my story resonated with them. That’s just incredibly gratifying, so I’ve been really pleased- in particular with my last story about adoptions. People have written to me saying they were adopted, or they adopted a child and they just really loved the story and were moved by it. So that’s the best thing; to know you’re touching people. Jenny: Well look it’s been wonderful talking, thank you so much for making time. All the very best for the future. Kate: Thank you, you too Jenny! Website: https://kate-hewitt.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateHewittAuthor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/katehewitt1   Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]