I’m interviewing K.A. Mitchell today. Most M/M readers know her since her books are very popular – from what is probably her best known and most popular book Collision Course to her very first book Custom Ride. Almost all of her stories are reviewed on the site so if you haven’t read any of them here’s your chance.
Here’s her bio
K.A. Mitchell discovered the magic of writing at an early age when she learned that a carefully crayoned note of apology sent to the kitchen in a toy truck would earn her a reprieve from banishment to her room. Her career as a spin control artist was cut short when her family moved to a two-story house, and her trucks would not roll safely down the stairs. Around the same time, she decided that Chip and Ken made a much cuter couple than Ken and Barbie and was perplexed when invitations to play Barbie dropped off. An unnamed number of years later, she’s happy to find other readers and writers who like to play in her world.
Hi K.A. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed on the site. I hope you enjoy the questions. 🙂 I would also like to thank Jenre who once again helped out with some excellent questions. Since we don’t know a lot about you, would you like to tell us a bit about K.A. Mitchell the person and the author?
Thank you so much for interviewing me on your site. I know it’s very popular with readers so I’m glad to have a chance to talk to them. Everything in the bio is true, including the fact that same-sex couples seemed both appealing and commonplace to me at a very young age. That it took until I was almost in my twenties before I realized I was more physically and romantically attracted to my own gender is kind of odd under those circumstances. I’ve been sneaking gay male erotica since my teens, imagine my surprise when I found an internet full of girls like me.
My personal life is above-average boring to read about. I’ve been married to the love of my life since it was legal (in Massachusetts), but we really should be
anticipating a buttload of silver presents next year.
I recently reviewed your most recent book Life, Over Easy and I thought many of the characters were wonderful, and John was so delightful – a mixture of innocence and maturity. How did you come up with his character, which I thought was quite unusual?
Thank you for the lovely review, Wave, and I’m glad you asked about John, because he actually does have a conception story. Like many other accidental conceptions, it happened in a car. (Don’t close your eyes. I won’t be gross.) I was driving back from a writing conference, thinking about basic story styles and said to myself, “I’d like to do a fish-out-of-water story.” My muse took me almost too literally. I got John, the diver who has vertigo from a brain injury and can’t dive.
Did you research synaesthesia, a condition similar to the one suffered by John, and then decide on the character? Or vice versa?.
I learned about literary synaesthesia “the black roar of the ocean” as an English major in college, and discovered the actual condition of sensory synaesthesia about seven years before I thought of John. His synaesthesia and his “colors” came about as I thought of ways his brain injury might have affected him. I didn’t know a thing about Alex or Mason until I sat down and started the book.
In almost all of your books your characters are opposites in temperament and outlook starting with Ryan and Jeff in Custom Ride, John and Mason in Life, Over Easy, Cameron and Noah in Diving in Deep, Joey and Aaron in Collision Course etc. Do you deliberately set out to do so or does it just happen? Will there be a K.A. Mitchell book where the characters’ temperaments are not so far apart or do you not want to tamper with a formula that works?
In addition to the sizzle and spark of opposites attracting, I’ve always enjoyed stories with characters who have reasons why they can’t be together beyond whatever external factors brought them together. When I’m telling a story, I have to be in some suspense about how it’s going to work out in order to stay in love with the story and keep writing it. I love the kind of conflict that comes from how the characters see the world instead of just what the world has done to them. They might not have to change completely before the end of the story, but they’re going to have to be willing or vulnerable enough to try some new ways of doing things if they’re going to have a happy ending.
One of the things I know I won’t ever do is write characters who both have a passive aggressive style of fighting again. I thought I’d strangle Sean and Kyle in Regularly Scheduled Life.
I have read most of your books, and Collision Course & Diving in Deep are my favourites because I love the characters. When you hear from your fans, is this pretty typical?
Joey and Aaron do seem to be fan favorites, but Cameron from Diving In Deep hasn’t won everyone over as easily. Diving In Deep and Chasing Smoke get a
pretty far range of responses. I’m happy if I’ve created characters that feel real enough to people that they want to argue about them. Aaron’s been called his share of names, but usually with some affection.
Here are some questions from Jenre
Many of your characters are opposite in temperament, what attracts you to that ‘opposites attract’ pairing?
Like I said before, I like to have a conflict that isn’t easy to fix, like agreeing on what town to live in or who gets to use the land. If the conflict comes from who the characters are, deep down, I feel I’ve got a chance at keeping a reader’s attention. And it’s really a lot of fun to write characters who have a long way to go to meet in the middle.
All your readers seem to love Joey – me included! – is he your favourite character, or do you have another character from one of your other books you like better?
I’m always falling in love with a new character, but Joey is one that doesn’t seem to ever want to retire to a nice rocking chair in my brain. He popped up when I needed someone for Noah to talk to in Diving In Deep. I said to myself I need an ex-boyfriend, maybe a therapist or something and Joey jumped to life. He filled my head with his back story, and even while I was working on other projects, he kept telling me he wasn’t happy with the boyfriend I’d given him. He nagged me for a hero, so I came up with as anti a hero as I could write. It didn’t slow him down. He still drops by to tell me about some shorts he’d like me to write for him—mostly sex. I think he’s a bit of an exhibitionist.
I was very fond of Cade and his cynical attitude. I share Daniel’s horror for his hometown. Kim says the kind of stuff I wish I could get away with saying.
On Twitter you often say that you have a compulsion to put your characters through the emotional wringer, why is that, do you think?
In one of my favorite series, the author killed the hero in the middle of a book. Killed him! She brought him back, but dishing out that kind of abuse certainly kept me turning pages. If the heroes don’t have something to fight, if it’s not bad and getting worse, if the reader can’t see that big ugly explosion coming, she might put the book down and I don’t want that to happen. I want to deliver the same sleepless nights, the same anxious moments, the same gut punches my favorite authors 
have given me. That means my characters (and to a much smaller extent me when I’m trying to get a handle on their emotions) get to suffer.
How difficult was it to switch gears and write a historical, especially as all your other books have been contemporaries?
I love this question, because it was more of a switch to write contemporary. I’d been writing everything but contemporaries for years before my first sale. The story that became An Improper Holiday was something I wrote almost twenty years ago, with no idea it would ever have an audience. I love writing historical, particularly the language, but also the constraints created by the mores. That’s not to say I don’t also love contemporary. It’s wonderful to be able to switch between the two. I really want to do both consistently, though the historical sales haven’t been equal to the contemporary. I have other stories planned, especially with Julian Lewes in them.
Would you say that Collision Course has been your most successful books so far, and are you surprised about that?
I was about halfway through Collision Course when my dad had to have open heart surgery. I knew I had strong characters when I was able to sit in the waiting room with my laptop and keep right on rolling like I was tucked away in my office. I knew I loved the story and the characters. I’m so glad that readers have enjoyed them too.
*************
Now back to my questions. 🙂
Many M/M readers are fans of your books and they can’t wait for a new release. How do you account for your popularity, other than excellent characterizations and plots?
I am absolutely thrilled to have readers. It’s not something that ever gets old. Every single piece of fan mail makes me do a little happy dance. For each book, I tell
the best story I can and hope I never lose what it is that makes people want to read it.
An Improper Holiday, your first historical, has been a resounding success. Erastes, a very discerning historical writer, reviewed the book for this site and gave it 5 stars. Do you have plans for more historical books in the future?
I definitely have more historical stories planned, two more in particular involving the character of Julian Lewes from An Improper Holiday. I have a few other historical ideas bouncing around in my brain like balls in a bingo hopper. An Improper Holiday doesn’t seem to have sold as well as other books of the same length, but I’m definitely willing to give historical another shot.
As an author, which do you prefer – sales or industry awards?
Well, I don’t think I have any industry awards, so that’s pretty easy to answer. It’s very exciting to be able to make money with my writing. I announced being an author as my career goal at the age of six. Quite a few decades passed before I met the income side of that equation. Of course, without readers, I wouldn’t have sales, so I definitely prefer having them to any award. That’s not to say that I don’t have fantasies involving winning the first Rita ever given to a gay romance.
I have been reading your books for three years exactly since Custom Ride in August 2007. Was Custom Ride your first published work? What are some of the challenges and what are some of the benefits of being so successful?
Custom Ride was my first sale. I had no idea if there would be another one and since I’d been working toward a sale for most of my life, I was determined to enjoy every aspect of it right down to being delighted with my first ISBN. Nine sales later, it still doesn’t get old, like I said. I still get very excited to get a contract offer, to get a cover, to see the book released. There are challenges, things I never could have thought of before my first sale. I’m always worrying about letting readers down with the next book. I want to keep bringing them the kind of stories that make them look forward to my new releases. I worry about things like why the historical didn’t sell as well as the contemporary. Was it the genre, the timing or do readers not like authors who switch genres? One thing I’ve learned is to try not 
to focus on what I can’t control and to focus on what I can, and that’s writing the best story I have in me.
Many of your fans can’t wait for your next release, so what do you have coming up over the next 3 – 6 months?
Not Knowing Jack, which features the characters of Jack and Tony who were in Regularly Scheduled Life, is due out in December. My critique partners think it’s darker and more angsty than Regularly Scheduled Life, but Tony is so much fun to write I think he lightens it up a lot. After that angst-fest, I’m planning to work on something fluffier that popped into my head. That should do it for the next six months, but I plan on doing the next book in the Fragments series that started with Life, Over Easy, and another book or two in Jacksonville (Hi Joey!) and the historicals and….I can’t turn off the generator in my head and I hope it never runs out of juice.
What does K.A. Mitchell do for fun?
Writing is fun (most days). Of course, I love to read when I have time. I’m afraid I’m a horribly one-dimensional character. I’d have to cut me out of one of my books. I enjoy going to the beach, watching Supernatural, and playing the sort of computer games where I get to boss people around (Sims, Civilization, Godfinger). My all time favorite was an old game called Outpost where the computer would purr, “The people looooove you, Commander.” Quite the boost to one’s ego.
What one thing can you reveal about yourself that you have never published before? 🙂
I am truly, madly, hopelessly addicted to my iPhone. My palm itches if I haven’t held it for an hour. There’s a new game called Zombie Farm where you get to raise a zombie army. The zombies are squishably cute. And I get to boss them around.
Thank you so much K.A.
Thank you, Wave and Jenre.
I appreciate all you do for the genre.
K.A. Mitchell is giving away a copy of Life, Over Easy, her newest book, to a lucky reader who comments on her interview.
K.A. Mitchell’s Contact Information
authorKAMitchell@gmail.com
http://www.kamitchell.com/
http://twitter.com/ka_mitchell
Great interview, Wave and KA – and thanks for answering my nosy questions :).
It’s nice to get to know you a bit better, KA. I have RSL on my TBR pile and I really ought to get down to reading it if there’s another book coming out soon. I’m also really looking forward to the next book in the Fragments series. I loved John and thought him a remarkably complex character.
Hi KA & Wave,
It’s great to learn a little something about you KA. I’m a fan of your contemporaries, but I really enjoyed “An Improper Holiday”. I hope you’re able to continue in both genres. But I do understand that like all of us, you need to make a living. 😉 Great interview.
I thought *I* was going to strangle Sean and Kyle in RSL. Those two are lucky they’re still alive, apparently. 😉
Great interview, ladies. Don’t enter me in the contest, since I already have LOE and wouldn’t want to steal it from someone who doesn’t. 🙂
Hi Jen, TJ and Jules
Thanks for the lovely comments.
K.A. was a dream to work with during the interview – no prima donna tantrums LOL.
She’s actually on the first day of her vacation and I believe is on the road right now but she promised to log on as soon as they arrive.
Jules – Thanks for letting me know that you already have a copy of LOE.
Great invterview guys. The silver candlesticks are in the mail. 🙂 Congratulations.
Hot Ticket was one of the first m/m books I ever read. Maybe something like #5 and I was totally in love with the guys and I’ve been a huge fan of your writing ever since. I still reread that book about every month or two. Cam and Noah followed and while Cam was a bit of an asshole I thought he redeemed himself. He is who he is. 🙂
It was fun to find out more about your motivation for your characters and what you have stored up in your head. Looking forward to all the new things coming up. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the interview, K.A and Wave!
I thought I’d strangle Sean and Kyle in Regularly Scheduled Life.
I am so glad I am not the only one who wanted to strangle Sean and Kyle! But that is one of my fave books of yours and yeah, you kind of put me and the poor guys through hell. 😛 If the next one is even darker… mmm… I think I might like it even more 🙂
Normally I don’t like m/m romance with more than 2 sex scenes per 100 pages, I can vouch that KA Mitchell’s stories are the exceptions, there are always something more in the scene than the “obvious” *g*
Eve
Thanks for stopping by.
Hi K.A.,
interesting interview. May I ask which book it was where the author killed and brought back the hero? The only one that comes in my mind is Sherlock Holmes (I don’t think you referred to that)
I love it when such things happen.
Feliz
Feliz
It could be one of Amy Lane’s books – she loves to kill off her characters. LOL
Hi Feliz,
Everyone look away if you don’t like spoilers.
It’s the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Actually, killing him wasn’t even the worst thing she did to Miles. I recommend starting with the first book, about Miles’s parents. It’s called Cordelia’s Honor.
Thank You!
I’ll make sure to check it out
Great interview Wave and Jenre!
I “discovered” KA when Regularly Scheduled Life was released, and after reading it totally added KA to my auto-buy….and have never once been disappointed. Love you style and characters. They always seem like guys I know 😉
KA, I hope for your continued success, and am looking forward to Not Knowing Jack….yay!
Hi ElaineG, thank you so much for your compliment. I love to think of my characters as people you could actually meet and hearingbthay from a reader is terrific. I’ll do my best to keep giving you the best characters I can.
Hi Jenre and wave! Thanks for liking my books and characters enough to ask me about them. I always enjoy talking about them. It’s like revisiting old friends.
Hi Tj,
Thanks for the historical love. I’m proud of An Improper Holiday and I am looking forward to being able to indulge my historical passions again. 🙂 My characters often don’t care what’s selling. When they’re ready to go, they go.
Hi Jules, Sean and Kyle were such a mess. The book was very different from the way I thought it would be, but I was pleased with the way it turned out.
Hi Tam, thanks for sticking with me. I love Cade and Elliot. I wish they lived next door to me. They are the most settled couple in my head. No further issues, completely happy.
It’s always fun to talk about my characters and for me to figure out why they do things. I definitely think they would give a better interview than I ever could.
Hi thelastaerie, thanks for stopping by! Oh, Sean and Kyle. I loved being able to write about them from Tony’s pov. I do want my sex scenes to be hot, of course, but I also want them to matter. I want them to make the characters closer or drive them apart, make them vulnerable to the feelings they avoid in conversation. I don’t want to write sex scenes that can be skipped without missing character development.
Great interview! I just discovered KA Mitchell through a freebie on the Kindle. I’ve already downloaded more. Can’t wait to meet all these guys everyone is commenting on. 😉
Hi Pia,
It’s great to see we were able to lure you in with our evil plan of free books. 🙂 There are more free things on my website, two of them linking Collision Course and No Souvenirs. I hope the paid ones don’t disappoint.
Loved the interview. Thanks for doing it.
When I read your ‘fish out of water’ comment I immediately thought of mer people. Yeah, I like paranormal. Now I have a story idea percolating in my head. Second time that’s happened today. Maybe I should try writing them down and see where they go.
Can’t wait til the book budget lets me get all the books that are on my ever expanding buy list, including Life, Over Easy.
Hi Beth, thanks for stopping by. You must immediately stab those ideas with a pen and write them down because they’re slippery and elusive little mothers.
Yeah, my brain went mermaid first, but although I’m drawn to some paranormals as a reader, I don’t feel up to that kind of world building as a writer at the moment. But one day, a character will get noisy enough and I’ll be out chasing those ideas, pen in hand.
K.A
I think you did okay on the interview don’t you? LOL
For someone who has never really been interviewed before I think you handled yourself very well.
I just want to know when I can get my hands on Not Knowing Jack, but before I do I guess I have to read RSL since that is the only KAM book I haven’t read. Why, you ask? Because I don’t do well with a lot of angst but for you I’ll read both. 🙂
Thanks again for taking the time to answer the questions. As you can see, Jo did a great job with the logo. Please thank her again for me.
Thanks again for having me, wave. It’s always fun to talk about my books with people who’ve enjoyed them. And Jo, my web designer, is made of awesome. I highly recommend her.
Good interview! You love your iphone, but isn’t there an extra warm feeling thinking of people reading your books on their own iphones? ^_^
Hi Kim,
The beauty and the tragedy of people reading on their iPhone, which is my preferred way to read, is that I don’t know if they’re reading me. That’s when it pays to have a healthy imagination.:)
Great Interview! The first KA Mitchell book I read was also my first foray into M/M books and I was hooked. I absolutely fell in love with the characters even though there were times I wanted to smack Cam. I immediately purchased every single book on your back list and your books are an auto-buy for me.
I adore your characters esp. Joey and Aaron, who I can read about for days. I can’t wait to read Jack and Tony’s story!
PS: Wave, I love your site. I have been reading your reviews as a lurker for over a year and I appreciate your insight and recommendations as well.
Hi Gracie T
I hope that now you have decloaked 🙂 you will comment on the reviews. We don’t know what the readers think unless they tell us – whether they agree or disagree. We even like to debate.
The reviewers will be very happy if you comment occasionally. LOL
Ha, I have definitely decloaked! Lurking is a bad habit I’m trying to break so I’ll be sure to comment on the reviews henceforth. 🙂
Looking forward to it Gracie. We’re really nice here. 😉
Hi Gracie, Cam was so obtuse; he just couldn’t see what had already happened. And it was such a clear violation of the guy code of ethics, messing with the bestie’s sob. He’s fine now that he got his head out of his ass!
hmmm. why does no one like the no souvenirs book as much as collision course? i must say it is one of my fave. in part, because i love how kim hides in his science brain when stressed and how shane is so so smart (double doctorates) but doesn’t use that to engage (with) kim. just to reach into his heart and spirit. yeah. i am a total fan…
:0)
-kkm
Hi kkm,
Thanks for stopping by. I’m really pleased with the way No Souvenirs came together. I love Kim and Shane. I wish I worked with Kim; he’d be awesome to get coffee with.
I think, like the next commenter Paula said
(Sorry, kkm, capricious internet connection) What Paula and many people have said is that Joey was one of the first of my characters they met, so he sticks in their mind. And he’s definitely an attention whore, and he knows it and loves it.
Kim and Shane are strong and have that dry wit that connected them from the first. It lets them kind of lurk and snark in the background. But I do love No Souvenirs, and the characters in it.
Joey is (partly) so memorable to me because he was the first KA Mitchell character I “met”. (I started with Collision Course.) I can’t think about him without hearing that Goldfrapp song…
Hi Paula,
Oooo la la la la! It was great fun playing with Joey’s soundtrack. And knowing he was in to music is how I found out about Kim’s tattoo! Thanks for stopping by!
KA Mitchell is one of my very, very, very favorite authors – I love her writing as well as her stories, and that doesn’t happen as often as I wish. I read Collision Course first, and it’s still at the top of my all-time favorite list; I have re-read it so many times, and I never tire of it. And I even got to meet her last year at the RWA conference (not sure I got the acronym right), and she was lovely in person.
So I am a huge fan who should write her far more fanmail than I do.
LOE is high on my to-read list – cannot wait to read it. I’m kind of holding off, because once it’s read, I’ll have to wait a while for another new KAM story…
So glad to see this interview here! 🙂
Hi Justacat,
It’s great to see you here and it was wonderful meeting you in person last year. It meant a lot that you drove in to chat with me.
Don’t worry about fanmail; I’m just glad I’m keeping you entertained. LOE has no cliffhangers, I promise. And Not Knowing Jack comes out December 7.
Great inteview Wave, K.A and Jenre 🙂
K.A. Mitchell is my absolute favourite author and the new books are always an autobuy 🙂 I have all her books, including LOE (which I loved), and I never get tired of reading them again and again. I agree that she writes the best sex-scenes with lots of emotions and hot revelations, they never disapoints. I think CC was my first K.A book also 😛 probably read it because of a jessewave-review so I’m thankful for the site for me finding awesome books to read 😀
Madde
Thanks for your lovely comments. KA is one of my favourite authors and I’m always happy to bring her books to the attention of new M/M readers.
Just wanted to say what a huge fan of KA Mitchell’s I am. I love love love all her books but especially her characters. RSL is my favorite of her books, Collision Course very close second. Can’t wait for Not Knowing Jack 🙂
I’m sorry I’m so late to the party but I wanted to chime in and say I’m a big fan too. I read Regularly Scheduled Life last week and I loved loved loved it. Oh, the angst! I really like picking up a story about an established couple – the romance is present right from the beginning and it is a nice change from the usual romances (which are also good, of course) where the boy meets boy/girl and they get together. Now I can’t wait for Jack and Tony’s story!!
I’m even later to the party than Kaetrin was, but I wanted to chime in, too. 🙂
K.A. Mitchell was one of the first several M/M authors I read (maybe the 2nd/3rd/4th I discovered???) and she’s one of my favorites! I’ve enjoyed all her books, including her historical (a major departure for me; I’m not into historicals…normally!).
KAM may have a fair number of “opposites attract” pairings–I never thought about it, but I see what y’all mean–but her books are all quite different. E.g., compare Chasing Smoke to Custom Ride to Regularly Scheduled Life to An Improper Holiday to . . . etc. 🙂
Anyway, I just picked up Life, Over Easy and will be tearing through it soon. I’m happy to hear there’s a sequel to RSL coming up, too. 🙂 Yay, KAM! Keep ’em coming!
Great interview, Wave & Jenre!