We chat with Kate Pentecost, author of the Elysium Girls and the upcoming YA standalone fantasy novel That Dark Infinity, which follows an immortal monster hunter and a royal handmaiden who embark on an epic journey to change their fates. We got to ask Kate about her favorite Romantic poets, her writing process and so much more!
Hi, Kate! Thanks so much for joining us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! So I’m a writer, artist, and educator. I’ve been working since I was about twelve to become an author, and as of last year with Elysium Girls, I finally made it. But I’m looking forward to branching out into other media, particularly podcasts and film. Oh! And I’m currently working on my Master’s in Thanatology, the study of death and grieving.
Lightning round! Name the first book that you think of when you hear the following words: ghost, immortal being, quest and healing!
Ghost: The Turn of the Screw. Immortal being: The Last Unicorn (my favorite book of all time.) And quest and healing: The Neverending Story. That book is absolutely amazing. Bastian’s journey first to become an idealized version of himself, losing himself, then stripping away the false version of himself again is just so moving, especially when you think about it in terms of therapeutic goals.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
I bake, read, work out, garden, decorate, listen to murder podcasts and watch the Great British Baking Show with my dog, make dinner with my partner. Drink a responsible amount of wine, that kind of thing. I’m getting back into video games as well, specifically the New Pokemon Snap, and I’m excited about Fable 4. Aside from that, it’s pretty cottagecore over here, really.
Now, onto That Dark Infinity! What can readers expect?
Readers can expect lots of atmosphere, lush scenery, tons of Easter eggs most concerned with folklore, literature, and mythology, and lots of direct dialogue about death, love, and healing. I wanted it to feel like a Hozier song, and to be honest, I think I achieved it. I realize that makes it sound incredibly intense, but it has a sense of humor too. Especially Lazarus, the Ankou. It was important to me that he wasn’t just some Byronic hero, that he was vulnerable too…while still being invincible.
You tackle the difficult topic of trauma and recovery after assault in That Dark Infinity. What challenges did you face bringing this aspect of the story to life?
I am also a survivor of sexual assault, so a lot of the challenge was making it evocative but not triggering. I wanted a book that people who have had similar experiences could read without reliving the experience. I wanted to present a portrait of someone who successfully healed from that on her own terms. Not someone who forgot what happened to her, enacted revenge, or was broken by it and made into something unrecognizable. Making sure Flora received a positive ending was incredibly important to me, and I rewrote the ending several times until I was satisfied that both characters got what they deserved in the end while still respecting the things that they had undergone. People who experience loss, abuse, or assault can have happy, fulfilling lives, and believing that—and furthermore, believing that we deserve that—is an important part of healing.
I loved the dynamic between the Ankou and Flora! What are your favorite friendships in fiction?
Oh man, thinking back, I really enjoyed the Babysitter’s Club books for their diversity of personalities. The Secret Place by Tana French showcases really outstanding relationships between four girls at a boarding school in Ireland, and I love it as well. The Lost Coast by A.R. Capetta is wonderful too.
What is your favorite part of being a writer? What’s the worst?
My favorite part of being a writer is writing a scene that you really FEEL and that you really put your heart into, then reading back over it and thinking, “All right, this is great!” My least favorite part is that no matter if you’re stressed because you’re writing or stressed because you haven’t written, you’re always low key stressed about writing. But not in a debilitating way. In more of an “Oh no, I haven’t gone to the gym and I need to!” sort of way. Also writing something you think will be great, then it just…not working out. That’s no fun.
Not every scene from the first draft survives until the finished book. Is there a scene or a moment from the beginnings of writing That Dark Infinity that you had to cut or thought didn’t fit with the book overall?
That Dark Infinity was actually a very different book when I began writing it. It was originally supposed to be episodic by chapter and sort of Terry Pratchett/Discworld-like in tone. Like a pseudo-medieval X-Files monster of the week episodes with an overarching plot, and the setting was Folklore itself. It played with a lot of tropes and was very lighthearted. But after I was assaulted and my grandmother died within the same month, Flora and Lazarus’s backstories both got super dark. Lazarus got his curse as I dealt with grief and my understanding of mortality, and Flora shared my experience as I healed from it. Gradually, as those backstories developed, they just didn’t fit with the world anymore. I ended up scrapping the X-Files in Folklore idea and leaning in to the darkness of the world. I rewrote that first chapter seven times before April Lurie, my second semester advisor at VCFA, agreed that the darkness of the setting and atmosphere matched the characters I’d created.
Rumor has it you are obsessed with the Romantic Poets. What are some of your favorite poems or lines you can’t get out of your mind?
My favorite of the Romantic Poets is Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom I consider to be a sort of secular patron saint, and who is sadly almost villainized in the new (and very historically inaccurate!) Mary Shelley movie. He was down for the cause. What cause? All of them. Pretty much literally any conflict you can think of at this moment, Percy Bysshe Shelley was already writing about it and was on the right side of history, acknowledging his privilege and risking assassination on the daily. Truly a fascinating guy. There is a chorus in his “Masque of Anarchy” that I feel is particularly relevant in these increasingly unprecedented times.
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number–
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you–
Ye are many — they are few.
With That Dark Infinity releasing soon, are you already working on another project? If so, can you share a tidbit about it with us?
I can’t say much, but I can say that there will definitely be ghosts, girl friendships, secret rituals, ace and queer representation, and maybe some kind of demon portal or something. 😉
Last but not least, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Recently, I really enjoyed House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland, A Dress for the Wicked by Autumn Krause, The Daughters of Ys by M.T. Anderson (Fun fact: “Kaer-Ise” comes from “Cair Ys,” which is the sunken Breton city that Anderson is writing about in this excellent graphic novel.) The Blazewrath Games by Amparo Ortiz is really fun, and as far as poetry goes, Beast Meridian by Vanessa Angelica Villarreal and The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyn Walrath are both amazing.
