As a girl, immersing herself in the haven of books, Kay Kerr never pictured her name on the front cover.
“I had never imagined being an author as something you could actually do,” Kerr says.
Now the Sunshine Coast author sits in a room surrounded by an orderly rainbow of books, with three novels under her belt and another to be released this year.
Kerr has always loved reading, so writing has never been far from her mind. She was a talented English student and avid bookworm, though as high school progressed, she found herself overwhelmed by the expectations. Her initial dream job was to become a film reviewer, though her career counsellors encouraged her to explore this through journalism. Kerr found much success in this industry, though it was not without its downsides.
“I ended up getting pretty burnt out in that role because it was just a high stress, high pressure kind of environment and I wasn’t accommodating myself in any way,” Kerr says.
It was when a fellow journalist published a novel that she realised that her name could be on more than just a newspaper front page. Since then, she has used writing as a creative outlet to explore ideas that are important to her and process her recent autism diagnosis.
Kerr’s first book Please Don’t Hug Me came out in April 2020, and she had to negotiate the road bump posed by COVID-19, which cancelled all her planned events. The book follows an autistic protagonist who is trying to find her place in the world as she reaches the cusp of adolescence and adulthood. The exploration of coming of age as a theme is dear to Kerr, and one she enjoys writing.
Passing on a love of reading
Kerr’s love of reading is something that she is eager to pass on to her young daughter. The two of them are currently invested in Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor series. Her parenting journey helped her discover that there is no such thing as the “right time” to write. Kerr finds that the flexibility offered in choosing her own hours as an author bolsters her productivity and allows her to compensate for her symptoms more easily.
Despite the pressures she faced, Kerr still believes that her start in journalism helped contribute to her success, building her resilience and response to criticism. Many autistic people struggle with rejection sensitivity, which makes the editing process painstaking.
“In journalism the feedback was a lot less considerate of my feelings,” Kerr says. “Once you realise that it’s not a personal thing and it’s trying to make the outcome better … it definitely helps.”
Her favourite genre to write? It is a struggle to pick just one when diversity has been the key to her success. Despite this, Kerr confesses to having a soft spot for young adult fiction (YA), feeling as though she will inevitably be drawn back to it.
“I’m kind of jumping around the place in my writing. I’ve I started in YA. Then I went to non-fiction for adults. Now about to publish a book that’s adult fiction,” Kerr says.
New book in December
With a new book on the way in December, it is no surprise that Kerr has Christmas on her mind.
The driving force behind her newest story is her desire to explore a neurodivergent relationship with Christmas while breaking away from the usual demographic of protagonists she generally writes.
“I really wanted to write a late diagnosis book with an adult character because I feel like that’s an experience that a lot of people, including me, had,” Kerr says.
She also wants to explore the strangeness of being neurodivergent in a holiday setting. For her, it is about the bemusement of being accused of being rigid, then surrounded by the expectations that things must be a certain way to appease tradition.
“[It is like] I’m in a room full of aliens,” Kerr says.
When asked about her hopes for the future of her writing her answer was simple.
“I just hope that I get to keep doing it,” Kerr says. “Every time I get to write another book, it feels like a dream come true.”
Kay Kerr’s novel Might Cry Later will be available in December.
