As an educator and an author, Kat Colmer has experienced first hand how stories influence our lives—both our own and those of others.

Why did you become a writer?

My career choices—English teacher and teacher-librarian—are testament to my love of literature and all things reading, but there is one pivotal event that started my writing career. My now son was born with a severe cardiac defect and we almost lost him shortly after he was born.

It took a good decade for me to weave the heartache, fear and emotion of those events into words, which my friend urged me to enter in a writing competition. The story won first place and started me thinking that, maybe, I could string words together in a way that moved and resonated with people.

Add a work environment which surrounded me with a multitude of fantastic stories, and it wasn’t long before the desire stirred to one day sit alongside the writers I so admired.

How has your experience as an educator influenced your writing?

I have the privilege of working with my intended audience— teens and young adults—and they, by far, have the biggest influence on my writing. When you take the time to connect and listen as an educator, you learn about the experiences
of complex and flawed young individuals struggling to find their way through life while navigating parental, societal and personal expectations. This ongoing push-and-pull of adolescence has formed the basis of all my stories so far.

Out of the many books you’ve come across, do you have an absolute favourite?

I dread this question, because ... I don’t have ONE favourite book. How can I? With so many wonderful stories out there, it’s too difficult to settle on just one, although Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray definitely makes my shortlist.

Although my most recent fiction is contemporary, the gothic and fantastical has always captured my imagination. Jane Austen has also had a heavy influence on my shortlist and my last book, Can’t Beat the Chemistry, has been dubbed as ‘Pride and Prejudice meets The Rosie Project’ by many readers.

What’s your favourite romance trope?

I have two: ‘enemies to lovers’ and ‘friends to more’. Interestingly, they’re polar opposite tropes, but I enjoy reading and writing both equally. I’m not sure what that says about me.

What is it about writing YA that you most enjoy? What do you find the most challenging?

Teen readers demand honesty in their stories. They will call an author out if they’re writing ‘at’ them instead of ‘for’ them. Keeping the voice of the story authentic is the most challenging part of writing YA. Getting it right is incredibly rewarding.

What’s it like to watch your students interact with a book you wrote?

Honestly? It’s equal parts confronting and rewarding. It’s that strange two-worlds-meeting feeling where I’m not sure if I’m meant to be wearing my teacher-librarian or author hat, but it’s always very exciting to have students come and tell me they’ve read one of my books. It usually results in a fabulous conversation about which characters are their favourites and what they’d like me to write next.

What inspired the setting for Remind Me Why I’m Here?

I have friends who own a sheep farm in Crookwell, NSW, and the Robertson’s farm in Remind Me Why I’m Here is based on this very sheep farm. I wrote the description of the homestead from a photo I took on my last visit.

Remind Me Why I’m Here and Can’t Beat the Chemistry
both focus on the dangers of snap judgements based on appearance. What inspired you to explore this theme?

Being a teacher-librarian, I’m the first to tell people not to judge a book by its cover. Our YouTube/ Insta/Snapchat/Tiktok image-saturated society conditions us to make snap judgements on everything from book covers to people.

I wanted to get young people thinking about all the facets that make up a person’s identity, and the experiences that shape them.

After all, the books that move you the most are not always those with the shiniest covers.

Maya and her love interest Gus are both struggling to follow their dreams. What do you hope readers will learn from their experience?

There are so many pressures and expectations on young adults, from society, their friends, their family and themselves. I think Maya says it best when she tells Gus: You only have one past, but you have many futures. It’s up to you which future you decide to travel towards.

What I really hope for readers to take away from Maya and Gus’s struggles is that there are many paths to your passion. They might involve detours you don’t anticipate or take longer than you initially thought, but if you’re determined to reach a destination, there’s always a way to get there.

Maya, the protagonist of Remind Me Why I’m Here, sticks out like a sore thumb on the sheep farm – was this experience drawn from your own life?

A little, yes. Although I thoroughly enjoy the visits to my friends’ Crookwell sheep farm, I’m not exactly what you’d call a ‘natural’ country girl. My own ‘fish out of water’ feeling certainly helped shape Maya’s farm experience.

the books that move you the most are not always those with the shiniest covers

Gus’s brother Pat is wheelchair-bound following an accident with a quad bike. How did you ensure you wrote him authentically?

The inspiration for Pat’s character and story came from a young
girl I ‘met’ in intensive care after my son was born. She had come off a quad bike on her family’s farm and hadn’t been wearing a helmet. When we left the hospital three months later, she still hadn’t woken from her coma.

This incident heavily influenced Pat’s backstory and to ensure his character rang true, I spent considerable time researching paraplegia, particularly as it affected people living and working on farms.

I discovered many heartening stories of perseverance, grit and just plain ingenuity as people re-invented themselves and their environments to continue working the land. Adapting farming machinery was a recurring theme, which is where Maya’s MacGyvering comes in.

Are there any messages you would like to impart to fellow educators?

Encourage your students to read! I know it’s difficult in the business of teaching, but there’s no greater lesson you can impart than to teach the value of reading. It’s a gift for life.

What are you working on at the moment?

I have three story ideas vying for attention at the moment: Another humorous YA contemporary about a teen string quartet that masquerades as a heavy metal band, a historical thriller based around my family’s escape from communist Poland, and an urban fantasy which may or may not involve creatures of the night. The question is, which needs to be written first?