Member Spotlight: Kat Lizee

by Sarah Wright

She approached the desk, her eyes never leaving the face of the man who sat behind it, the man who had seduced her soul. She stretched out one long, slender finger, gingerly tracing his hairline, running her finger down the bridge of his nose to his lips. Oh, how she longed to taste those lips once more. He placed his strong hands on her slender hips, leaning forward to kiss her cleavage as one hand moved behind to grasp an amazing backside. He pulled her close, down into his lap and fulfilled her wish, covering her mouth with his, delving his tongue inside as he deepened the kiss.

Ah, romance. We all crave it, giggle about it, live vicariously while talking about it, but putting our carnal desires into written form often garners little more than ridicule. Romance novelist Kathryn Lizee believes readers should give romance literature another chance. "I know romance is not considered very literary by some. That’s okay. I’m secure enough with who I am that I don’t really get upset by snobbery, because I think if someone sat down and read some of the really good authors, they’d see that romance isn’t just the stereotypical ‘bodice ripper.’ Whether anyone wants to acknowledge it, romance is [considered] a major player in the literary world, in terms of sales and interest, by the big agents and publishing houses."

Just how big is the romance industry? According to the Romance Writers of America (RWA), romance accounts for over half of all paperback sales in America and over 35 percent of all fiction, totaling $1.5 billion in sales in 2001. That year the 8,400 members of RWA produced 2,143 titles, amounting to approximately 41 new books hitting the shelves each week.

Kat writes for the paranormal subgenre, which combines elements of erotica with time travel, fantasy, ghosts, and vampires. "The paranormal subgenre is very popular right now. Paranormal, romantic suspense and erotica are gaining a huge following and editors are snapping up good works quickly."

A poet as a child, Kat was published by fourth grade in Prism, a magazine for gifted students. She used poetry as a creative outlet all through school, but entered Centre College in Danville, Kentucky with the intention of graduating with a degree in opera performance and the desire to sing professionally.

After her father suffered a heart attack, she moved home, enrolled in a state school, and rediscovered her love of writing through courses on Victorian literature and creative writing. She found special inspiration in the works of Jane Austen and says of the Bronte sisters, "I would not be who I am today without their works." It was during one of her creative writing classes that Kat began writing short stories. "[I] found that I had a natural feel for the rhythm of a longer work."

After graduation, Kat continued writing poetry and submitting to journals, but it wasn’t until the tragedy of 9-11 that she decided to get serious about writing novels. In the past two years, she has completed three novels and is currently plotting her fourth and fifth.

Kat and her husband moved to Seattle in 1998 and stayed for three years before returning to her home state of Kentucky. They settled in Berea, a small community south of Lexington that Kat describes as a "very artistic community." While she hasn’t found the resources Seattle has to offer readily available, she finds the town has a "very energetic and driven environment."

Her first two books were pure romantic suspense, but she found those types of stories more enjoyable to read rather than write, and made the switch to the paranormal subgenre. If the quick success of her first paranormal novel, Runaway Home, is any indication, she seems to have found her niche. A senior editor at Avon, Harper Collins’ romance division, is reading the manuscript, and it placed in the Romancing the Novel competition, the first contest in which Kat entered the book.

Kat has had some success with her other novels as well, gathering numerous awards, and winning the Merritt award in the single title division for her first book, Never Let Her Go. "Awards definitely help one’s career. Anytime you final or place in a Romance Writers of America chapter contest, you’re getting your work in front of an editor. It sure beats the slush pile."

In order to bypass the slush pile, Kat has developed a system for writing that allows her to "completely plot out, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, a 400 page novel" in about eight days. Using techniques drawn from Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, she feels that her system helps her "address the fundamentals of good storytelling." Finding pictures in magazines or on the Internet helps her put images with her character’s faces, homes, and surroundings.

Kat seems to have boundless energy, something that will no doubt help as she pursues a career in the romance industry. She is brimming with ideas and wishes she could clone herself in order to "write all the stories that I need and want to write." Now that would be one interesting story.

Sarah Wright is a writer, actress, and violinist. She has athlete envy and would like to attempt a marathon and maybe even a triathlon.