I Sold My Book

Good People Coming Soon from Simon & Schuster

In 2015, my fiction professor called me into his office to talk about my work. Our class was a craft course on the short story. Each week, we read a story collection and completed writing exercises based on the craft elements demonstrated in the reading.

Up until this point in my writing life, I had identified as a horror writer. I wanted to write stories about monsters whose physical aberrations spoke to an unsettling truth about the human condition. In these stories, I wanted to express my anxieties about navigating the world as a Black woman through the metaphor of monsters, not a character similar to myself who lived in a world that resembled our own. The fantasy of monstrosity gave me freedom to explore and critique life as I knew it in a way that social realism did not.

Unfortunately, at the time, my undergraduate program did not foster a welcoming environment for genre writers. Genre stories were often perceived as a lesser art, and this perspective became apparent in workshop. I’d workshop a story about two werewolf sisters who must choose between the safe confines of their human life or the dangerous freedom of the wilderness. Instead of receiving feedback on craft elements like the use of flashback or how to create a narrative voice authentic to the character, the conceit of the story would be the central focus of the criticism. “Why do they have to be werewolves? Why can’t this just be a story about a dysfunctional Black family in the midwest?” This feedback (or lack thereof) created a frustrating and discouraging writing experience for me.

Needless to say, I went into this short story craft class with a lot of baggage from my previous five semesters in the program. When the class began, I consciously made the decision to write absurd literary stories about a wild college student that would poke fun at literary fiction as a genre. Then, at twenty years old, I was naïve and lonely without a literary community. I wanted to be accepted in this academic space that I revered, and so I thought: maybe if I played the game of literary fiction that our workshops often demanded, acceptance would finally find me.

By the time I met with my professor for our mandatory conference, I had submitted several of these literary stories, all of them centered around a character named Jo Tope.

One of the short stories I submitted to class in 2015.

I sat down in the professor’s office inside the clocktower building on campus, and he cut right to the chase, “Kat,” he said. “I think you have a novel with your character, Jo.”

Given my negative experience as a genre writer in the program, I almost laughed. This class was my first course with this particular professor, so he likely had no idea that I preferred genre fiction. I was honest with him and explained that I only wrote those stories because genre was so frowned upon in the program. I got the sense that he wanted to mentor me and help me find a way into a novel about Jo, but I was disastrously arrogant about my skills, secretly wounded about how my work had been received for the last three years, and tragically unfamiliar with literary kindness. As a result, I left that meeting scoffing at the idea of dedicating time to write a literary novel.

Now, almost a decade later, I greatly regret how I handled that meeting because in 2015, an unconscious transformation—slow and revealing like sunrise—was beginning within me. Each week, I read our assigned books closely so that I could better understand the genre conventions of literary fiction and write more self-aware and over-the-top stories about Jo. But in doing so, I accidentally cultivated a deep respect for the genre, and that respect quickly evolved into a sincere love for literary fiction.

Two years after that meeting, I finished the first draft of Good People (originally titled Lit by Burning). Now, I can proudly say that my professor was right; I did have a novel with Jo.

Taken at Gimnyeong Beach on Jeju Island

Good People will be published by Simon & Schuster (most likely) in 2027. I’m thrilled to work with Yahdon Israel on this book that has played such a central role in my life for the past decade. I also want to thank our team at Writers House—Robin Rue, Beth Miller, and Genevieve Gagne-Hawes—for believing in this book.

Between now and publication, aspects of the book (like the title) will change, but here’s the pitch as it stands now:

Good People

Jo Tope’s birth mother left her in a high chair in the neighbor’s house and never came back. This is how the Topes, a Black family of four, adopted a white baby.

Good People follows Jo Tope, a habitually drunk college student who desperately wants to become white. Growing up with her identity split between the Black family that raised her and the white schools she attended, Jo always thought that college would be her chance to escape her past and fully embrace whiteness. Now, a junior at Johns Hopkins University, she pursues a Rhodes Scholarship, believing that a graduate degree from Oxford is her path to becoming a “regular white person.” But when her alcoholic tendencies threaten her personal relationships and her chances at the Rhodes, Jo must learn that whiteness will not save her before she loses her academic future and the people who matter most.

Over the next two years, I will be documenting the publication process here. These posts will share all the things I learn along the way and practical tips that might help you on your own writing journey.

We’ll be resuming a regular posting schedule on April 21st. I have new content that I’m excited to share with you all. I’d also love to hear about the kind of content you’re interested in. Do you want more craft lessons? Are you interested in craft-oriented book reviews? Do you have any questions about publishing that you’d like answered?

The comment section is open to everyone, and I’d love to hear your thoughts:

Thank you for your support. Our community here means so much to me. I’m not sure I would have finished the revise and resubmit request without our conversations in this space. I look forward to posting regularly again on the 21st.

Until then,

Kat