Katta Kis’ first job was playing a vampire baby in a student film, sealing her fate as a goth child for life. After a variety pack of jobs and apartments, she is currently settled in Northern California. She cohabitates with her two adorable demon babies masquerading as cats and her high school romance which never ended. When not writing, she can usually be found reading or at a concert.
Author Links:
Bluesky: @kattakis.bsky.social
Instagram: @kattakiswrites
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Let’s talk about Romance! How would you pitch your brand of Romance to readers who don’t know what to expect from your books yet?
I would call it contemporary pagan celebrity romance. Real magick practices set in our world (with some made up pop stars).
Let’s chat about character development and your writing process! In Love in the Liner Notes and Love at the Rock Show, you have a combo of band guy + witchy girl; can you tell us a bit about the different practices your pagan/psychic characters engage in, and also the differences in the bands and musicians that you write?
In Love in the Liner Notes, I introduce our broken-up boy band Beatboyz, two of whom (Patrick and Rohan) end up in a love triangle with my witchy sex educator, Cazzi. Cazzi practices sigil magick, turning her spells/coping mechanisms into pictograms and images which she has tattooed on her body. Rohan is really into symbols and sigils but isn’t a practitioner.
Meanwhile, Patrick is a certified herbalist, practicing herbal medicine, mostly in the form of teas.
Judit, who is the female main character in Love at the Rock Show, is a psychic who specializes Tarot readings (though she can divine with anything).
In addition, we have Rohan’s Satanic ex-girlfriend Angela Alice (and heavy metal queen) and Benji, Patrick and Rohan’s business partner who is an ex-pop punk/goth rock star and animist. The two of them are my couple in the book I’m currently writing, No Love in LA.
Musically, I have a washed up boy band (with various post-band career paths including famous solo act and drag queen), a goth rock star turned songwriter, and a very popular Satanic metal star. Also, Benji’s mom plays in an old school all-female DIY punk band. All these genres are very fun to write, especially the lyrics of their songs which I include as chapter headings and throughout the books.
How do you develop your love interests and make the dynamics unique to these pairings, but still a familiar combo of characters for the readers?
In this series, all my main characters know or know of each other by the end of book one so their relationships are very influenced by the group dynamics (who’s friends with who, who broke up with who, who broke their friend’s heart, etc.). I developed Cazzi and Rohan first and they changed A LOT during the various drafts.
The Pagans & Pop Stars series was a side project for a long time while I wrote “serious books.” Eventually, I realized I kept coming back to it for a reason and switched my focus.
This is a process that started back in 2012 or so, so please forgive me if I’m a bit vague on the details of developing these characters who have lived in my head for so long.
Anyway, back to the characters. As I was developing the world around Cazzi and Rohan, side characters kept elbowing their way into the picture and I would realize “oh this person needs their own book” and sometimes, like in the case of Benji and Angelica, who they should be with was clear from the get go.
Other characters, like Judit, went through a few iterations before I found the version that worked.
The process for me is very iterative. I keep tropes in mind to some degree but a lot of it is diving into the psychology and trauma of each character and then fitting their scars together with those of their love interest. Then I tweak things to make sure that while there’s angst and drama, the overarching relationship becomes healthy and supportive.
I do read a lot of romance (because I love it) but also to see where my stories fit in with the narratives readers love while also keeping them fresh and fit my vision.
What attracts you to, or is your connection to, the worlds of these characters, do you do a lot of research or read rock star autobiographies/biographies, or have you been on the road yourself?
I love music and I’ve been in and around the industry and the entertainment industry since I was a child. I find the machine of the entertainment industry horribly fascinating and love to see how people disrupt it or create art outside of it.
I haven’t been on tour myself nor am I a musician, though I did play several instruments (badly) in my youth, but I was a music journalist and have musicians in my family so I learned a lot from folks who had had those experiences.
I’m also a research junkie so I devoured many, many books over the years on songwriting, the industry, oral histories, and memoirs/autobiographies. I also listen to great podcasts like Song Exploder (especially useful for the songwriting in Love in the Liner Notes) and My Warped Life (gave me so much insight into the festival tour in Love at the Rock Show).
I do a lot of research for the parts of my books that are not of my lived experience too including pagan practices outside of mine, gender and racial lived experiences, and certain traumas.
I also use sensitivity readers for POV characters to make sure I’m not being harmful with my depictions.
What was the best gig/concert/festival you have ever been to, and has that been used as inspiration for the books?
Oh my goodness, I’m so bad at picking favorites! Also, I have been to sooo many gigs over the years. Pieces of all the shows I’ve ever been to are in my books somewhere either subconsciously or consciously like when I took notes at Aftershock Festival or pulled on my memories of covering Launch/TBH festivals (RIP) and being backstage at events I was covering or where knew the band for Love at the Rock Show.
Shows that really stand out:
- My Chemical Romance – I saw them twice, once as my first show and again at Aftershock a few years ago, and oh man, they are so good. I was 13 again and sang my heart out for the whole show. Also Gerard Way is really sweet about taking care of the crowd which is lovely to see.
- Rivals/The Raging Kids – This was a small venue show with a bunch of artists but these two stood out. Rivals was the band we came to see and they were amazing, worked the crowd even though it was sparse, and lovely to talk to afterwards. The Raging Kids is actually one guy with a very short set list but wow, he engaged the (even smaller) crowd until we were eating out the palm of his hand. Also super nice to talk to afterwards and he gave us the set list to the show which I still have.
- Hozier/Allison Russell – Both wonderful performers who made the giant basketball stadium we saw them in feel intimate. Loved that Hozier actually played a song with Allison because you just don’t see headliners engaging with their opening act that much anymore
- Ghost – Amazing show. When they did their closing song, “Monstrance Clock” and everyone sang along, it was a religious experience. There are many more amazing show memories running around my head right now (Fallout Boy, the Maine, Jakarti Smith, Rise Against, Judas Priest, Muse, In This Moment, Bastille, Nile Rodgers…). I think I need to go find myself another concert to go to.
What’s next for the series? Do you have any couples you’re especially looking forward to introducing to readers?
Next is Angela Alice and Benji! I’m working on No Love in LA and it will (hopefully) be out sometime this fall. This is possibly (don’t tell the others) my favorite couple for many reasons: their dynamic (Benji hates Angie, she’s got a crush on them), the characters (Angie’s a force of nature who is trying to turn over a new leaf, Benji is a control freak and both of them are morally grey goths who scare people), and that I get to write an female/enby pairing which is close to my heart because it reflects my relationship.
The final book in the series is also really fun, it’s the last two members of the Beatboyz in a second chance M/M romance. One’s a drag queen, the other is a successful solo act and they’re stuck on an island dating reality show together. Super excited to write that one.
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