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MEET KATE HOVEY
by Ann Stalcup

What did you most like to do when you were a child?

Kate Hovey

I’ve always been a voracious reader.

What books influenced you most when you were growing up? 

I grew up reading “My Book House” books, a wonderful series edited by Olive Beupre Miller. One of the volumes contained a collection of Greek myths, including excerpts from THE ODYSSEY of Homer and THE AENEID of Virgil. I was in the third or fourth grade when I first read them, and I’ve been hooked on Greek mythology ever since.

Did you write stories when you were growing up?

The “Book House” books also exposed me to poetry, which became another lifelong obsession—I’ve been writing poems almost as long as I’ve been reading Greek mythology! Back then, writing poetry was an intensely personal, private affair. I didn’t consider sharing my poems with anyone until the seventh grade, when my English teacher praised some writing I’d done in class and asked if I had “anything else.” It took a long time to work up the courage to show him my poems, but the experience opened me to the possibility of writing for a larger purpose.

Did you ever have a moment when you decided that you were going to be a writer when you grew up?

I think my experience in seventh grade probably set me on the writing path—I received encouraging feedback from my first real ‘audience’ and discovered William Blake and Emily Dickinson, all in the same year!

When you went to college, were you already set on pursuing a writing career?

My passion for poetry eventually lost out to practicality, and I decided during my freshman year to major in journalism. I quit writing poems and joined the staff of Michigan State University’s daily student-run newspaper.

What was your first job when you graduated from college?

Before finishing my undergraduate work, I took a job as a features writer for The Sanford Herald, a small daily newspaper in North Carolina. It quickly led to a post at The Fayetteville Observer, where I did court reporting, co-edited a community action column and wrote features for the Sunday edition. One of my features, a story about the families of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam, was picked up by the Associated Press wire service and published in newspapers across the country.

How soon after that was your first book published? 

Decades later, after moving to California, marrying and starting a family, I returned to writing poetry. I studied at UCLA with noted poet and anthologist Myra Cohn Livingston and eventually sold my first children’s collection.

When was it published?

My poem Arachne Speaks was made into a picture book and published in 2001 by Margaret K. McElderry Books. The rest of the collection, ANCIENT VOICES, was published by McElderry Books in January, 2004.

Was your first book accepted immediately, or did you experience a number of rejections?

Several publishers rejected my manuscript over the two-year period I spent submitting it. I was pretty discouraged by the time I signed up for a professional critique session at the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators annual summer conference. By sheer luck, my manuscript was assigned to Brenda Bowen, who was vice president of Simon and Schuster’s children’s division at the time. She bought the collection right there at the conference!

What are the topics of some of your books?

ARACHNE SPEAKS retells a myth from Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES, the story of an ancient weaving contest between the maiden Arachne and the goddess Athena (Minerva in the Roman pantheon). Both ANCIENT VOICES and VOICES OF THE TROJAN WAR are collections of poems based on Greek myths. I have a lesson on YouTube about how to make masks. Here is the link YouTube. Enjoy.

Do you do other types of writing?

I write fiction and poetry for children and adults. My “grown up” poems have been published in literary magazines, most recently in the Comstock Review’s twentieth anniversary edition.

Have any of your books earned special recognition?

ARACHNE SPEAKS was a 2002 Marion Vannett Ridgway Honor Book and VOICES OF THE TROJAN WAR was named a 2005 Notable Book by the National Council of Teachers of English. Both ANCIENT VOICES AND VOICES OF THE TROJAN WAR are in the 2008 California Collections.

Which of your books did you most enjoy writing?

ANCIENT VOICES was such a treat to write! The poems were inspired by my many visits to the old Getty Museum in Malibu—what is now called the Getty Villa. The museum building is an exact replica of an ancient Roman villa, so when I first walked into it, I felt as if I were stepping back thousands of years in time. I wrote most of the poems for ANCIENT VOICES while sitting in the Getty’s beautiful Roman garden.

Do you have any hobbies?

I started working with metal when I lived in North Carolina. Over the years, I’ve made everything from iron fireplace pokers to gold wedding rings to the large copper masks I use in my school performances. I’ve even made metal clothing for rock and roll performers! As a writer, I spend so much time in my head; working with my hands seems to help keep me balanced. Gardening and yard work have the same effect on me—digging in the dirt is great therapy!