We chat with author Kate Stayman-London about her new rom-com Fang Fiction, which is a love letter to fandom culture, online easter eggs, and sexy vampires that also tackles weightier topics like trauma and healing.
Hi, Kate! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, fellow nerds!! I’m Kate, and I’m a novelist and TV writer/producer living in Los Angeles. I started my career in politics, and I’ve written jokes for three presidents – but now I write feminist romantic comedies, which I have to say is even more fun. I’m a huge nerd from way back (in high school I was president of both the theater club and Model UN club, so yeah, I extremely did not kiss anyone until college), and I still find so much joy in learning and fandom.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Oh gosh, it feels like it’s always been a part of me! When I was a kid I would wander around my backyard making up stories, and during naptime in kindergarten I would always stay awake to construct these little soap operas with objects I found. The other kids knew I did this, so they’d bring me bits of fluff and feathers and rocks and string, and I’d make them all into characters in these grand dramas. But the moment that really changed my life was a playwriting class I took with the playwright Constance Congdon during my sophomore year in college. Connie became my advisor and my mentor, and through working with and learning from her, I found that there was nothing on earth that made me as happy as writing does. I knew I had to try to make a career of it if I could.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: I, Houdini by Lynne Reid Banks
- The one that made you want to become an author: Troubling a Star by Madeleine L’Engle
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Now Is Not The Time To Panic by Kevin Wilson
Your latest novel, Fang Fiction, is out October 1st! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Funny sexy feminist vampire adventure!
What can readers expect?
Fang Fiction tells the story of a woman who discovers that the world of her favorite vampire novels is a real place when she’s asked to go there to rescue the sexy villain of the series. This novel is my love letter to shows like Buffy, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries, the novels of Anne Rice, and so many other works of vampire fiction – I think all of us who love fantasy have wished at one time or another that we could be a character in one of those stories. So it was beyond fun for me to flesh out that idea – and hopefully it’s just as fun for readers to go along on that journey! Fang Fiction has two romances (one straight and one lesbian), a big twisty adventure plot, and a ton of banter-y comedy and pop culture references. It’s basically everything I love all wrapped up in one campy vampire novel!
Where did the inspiration for Fang Fiction come from?
Being very real with you, it actually happened on January 6th, 2021. I had been working for months on a different novel idea – a much more explicitly political one – and watching what was happening in our real-life politics at that time, I was just too sad to keep writing it. Between that and the pandemic, I didn’t want to be in our real world anymore; I wanted to escape to a more exciting one. I called my agent to tell her I wanted to write something different, and when she asked me what I was thinking. I said, through tears, “A girl wakes up in Buffy?” That was the beginning – just wishing I was in the world of Buffy instead of the real world. The more I dug into that premise, the more rich and exciting character and plot ideas started bubbling up, and I was totally hooked.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I really loved writing about the Isle – the mysterious magical island where all the vampires in the world have been imprisoned by a coven of meddling witches. This was my first time writing fantasy, and it was so, so fun to come up with these fabulous settings that could never exist in a contemporary rom-com. Like yeah, I do want the library to be a series of floating platforms in a giant indoor forest where every platform is themed to look like the category of books you’d find there. (A book girl’s dream!!)
And while I loved writing all my characters, there’s a vampire named Octavia – a posh British Korean lesbian who lives for fashion and despises anything tacky, and also men – who’s particularly close to my heart.
This is your second published novel! What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned between working on the two?
I wrote on three seasons of a multi-cam sitcom between writing my first and second novels (the iCarly reboot), and that experience really pushed me to be open to new ideas and change tracks quickly when something isn’t working. In TV, so many things can go wrong that are totally beyond your control – the cast hates your story idea! the studio has some notes! you lost a location! – and you have to turn on a dime and make it work, because your shooting schedule can’t be changed. So I think I was a lot more flexible writing my second novel, and that was really freeing – if an idea isn’t working, you don’t have to beat it into the ground trying every possible iteration. You can toss it and move on and figure out something that works better! Obviously, novels take much longer to rewrite than sitcom scripts, so the faster you can recognize that something needs to change, the easier it makes the process as a whole.
What’s next for you?
This is actually the least scheduled my life and career have been in years, and I’m kind of excited about it?? I’m working on a new novel idea that I’m super pumped about, so I can’t wait to see where that goes; I’m planning a couple of big trips; I’m volunteering on the presidential campaign. And of course, I’m so excited to go on book tour for Fang Fiction! My debut novel came out during the height of the pandemic, so I’ve never had an in-person book event. I’m going to hug so many people I love and dress so goth and finally get to meet my amazing readers. I can’t wait.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Ooh, great question! I just re-read You, Again by Kate Goldbeck, which is one of my favorite romances ever, and I was so lucky to get an early read of Lost & Lassoed by Lyla Sage – Lyla’s books are my ultimate comfort reads. Rosie Danan is an automatic must-read author for me, and her new novel Fan Service (out next January) feels like a perfect companion to Fang Fiction – it’s about the former star of a supernatural TV show who starts turning into a werewolf irl, and he turns to the mod of one of the show’s fan boards to help him figure out how to handle it. I also got to read an early copy of this one, and it’s SO great.
