Interview with Indie Author Katie Duggan

Stories where fat, queer people love freely and beautifully

By: Leah Thakur

Katie Duggan (she/they) writes books about fat, queer, neurodiverse people falling in love and being deeply loved on. “Romances for every body, heart, and mind,” is how she puts it. They are also one of the loveliest indie authors and humans you’ll ever meet. Her books are full of the same charm and humor she herself exudes! I met her in February of this year at Love Y’all Fest, where I was so lucky to bond with her immediately and have since binged her books and loved every page of them thoroughly. They are funny, romantic, and so deliciously spicy and kinky while never shying away from the deeper and more emotional aspects of life. 

Their debut novel, From the Start, follows Nic Quinn, one of eight siblings, lovingly called the “Quiblings,” as she finds herself, and simultaneously finds love. As of right now, there are two books published in this series of interconnected standalones. The second book, Back to Me, is a sapphic second chance novel that follows Jo Quinn. This August, Katie is releasing the third book in the series,On My Side, and I was honored to interview her about her experience writing and about the new book. Let’s get into it!

Katie Duggan, author of From the Start, Back to Me, and On My Side

Leah: So, what made you want to become a writer?

Katie: Honestly, I just don’t remember a time that I didn’t want to be a writer. It’s been my life’s dream! My mom always likes to tell the story of when I was little; I used to write scribbles on a paper and be like, “Mom, I wrote a story!” And she’d say, “Okay, then tell it to me because I can’t friggin’ read it.” And it’d be this long-winded story and she’d say, “go tell it grandma,” and it would be the same story so she would say, “you wrote in your own little language!”

So, yeah, I truly don’t remember, it’s like wanting to write has been as much a part of me as anything has ever been.

Leah: What was the inspiration for the Quiblings and their iconic parents?

Katie: Some of it's based on my family, except I come from a pretty small, you know, nuclear family. It's me and my sister and our parents, but we are Irish-Italian, so that's a very big influence. I have about 20 first cousins, I think, on my mom's side, so like, a big rowdy Irish family, just loud as heck, so fun. We’re all kind of, not mean to each other, but the way the Quiblings talk is how my cousins and I will interact with each other. We’ll tell you like it is, we’ll bully you a little bit, but we love each other so much and we will come through for each other, always. 

My cousins are so cute and supportive, but also they’re older and I always thought they were so cool. We had a family reunion last month and three of them kept saying, “We’re so proud of you.” I was like, “Oh my god!”

I’ve also always wanted to write a series of interconnected standalones and, it’s so funny, I was actually working on another sibling’s book when From the Start came to me and I decided to write that instead. They started as cousins, a couple siblings and some cousins, and then I decided, let’s make you all siblings. There were four or five at first and then more characters kept coming and all of a sudden, sorry to your mom, but there were eight.

From the Start, Back to Me, and On My Side — all authored by Katie Duggan

Leah: As a fat person, I love finding fat people in romance. I think romance is beginning to do a really good job including fat FMCs but you hardly ever see fat MMCs. I love Josh (in From the Start) for so many reasons, but I also specifically love that he’s fat. Tell me about writing his character!

Katie: So when the character of Josh came to me, he was always fat. My characters are very physical in my mind as far as what they look like, and Josh was always a fat man. 

It was really special writing about, first of all, the insecurities that he has. I love a good plus-size romance, and sometimes it’s kind of hard to read because it feels like it’s either all confidence all the time, or it’s just looking down on your body. Where’s the middle ground of sometimes I’m okay with myself and sometimes it’s really hard to be?

When I was brainstorming, I had the idea of him being a comfort to her (Nic), like him laying on her. I really liked the idea, because he’s at the point where sometimes it’s hard, and he’s been careful in the past, but she’s like, “Get your ass on top of me right now and smother me.” And I just love that this is something that he’s never looked at as a positive, he’s looked at it neutrally, but she sees it as this great positive.

With Audrey in my next book, she’s mid-sized but she’s had a baby and her body has changed a lot. There’s a lot of expectations for women postpartum, and she was a teenager (when she gave birth), but that’s still something she carries with her and is something she’s trying not to pass on to her kid. So, I really wanted to have that middle where there’s still body neutrality and it’s okay if sometimes it’s kind of hard to exist in that body. It was the same with writing Jo in Back to Me.

Fat people experience marginalization. I remember back in 2020, I went semi-viral on TikTok and I got bullied off (the app) for being fat. That’s the first thing people notice about me, the first thing they attach to my character, and it’s not a negative thing. It’s just seen as one. 

It really helped me see myself in a new light, writing about fat bodies, writing about softness, writing about dimples and stuff like that. It was just really special.

Leah: As a queer woman, I love sapphic books and they mean so much to me. Tell me about your experience with writing Back To Me and if there was any extra joy in writing it because it’s sapphic?

Katie: Oh my gosh, absolutely. I was raised Catholic, I went to youth group, and I have ADHD and I’m autistic, so I went to all ends of the religion thing for most of my life until after I was out of college. 

So I remember in high school being like, “I think I like girls,” and it freaked me out because I also liked guys. So I was like, “What is this?” And it’s not a sin to have same-sex attraction, it’s a sin to act on it, but I always thought, “It’s fine for other people but that’s not me.” It was a thing where you look at yourself differently than how you look at others. 

Obviously that’s not the mindset I still have! However, for myself, it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. It wasn’t until my mid-20s I think that I was like, “Okay, I’m bi.” I became very okay with it, came out, and I’m very lucky that my family’s very supportive and my friends are very supportive. 

But, I also kind of always struggled with my queerness because I had been on a couple dates but I really hadn’t done anything, so it was like, what if I’m just making it up? So I was just writing, and writing their (Jo and Hunter’s) experience with queerness and even they had a very hard time coming out. Then for me, it was this anticipatory anxiety.

But, queerness can change, you evolve and you learn so much more about yourself as you get older and as you’re put into different circumstances. So it was very special to write. There was definitely some extra joy, especially with Jo and Hunter, who I just absolutely love!

Leah: All of your books feature fat, queer, and/or neurodivergent characters, there is always mental health representation, and your characters feel so genuine. Why did you choose to write books and characters like this, and what does writing that representation and putting it out into the world mean to you?

Katie: I’m sure you can also relate, but you read all these books about these women falling in love, and they never quite look like you. That’s a big thing in queerness too; you see so many queer books and they’re great, but you don’t see a lot of fat queer people in romance. We’re starting to, but I remember when I was first writing you would see all these perfect, socially acceptable bodies, but I also really wanted to see fat bodies in that space. 

I want to see fat people falling in love and being open with their sexuality. 

It was something that I never saw growing up. I grew up bigger, my mom was plus size, and I grew up never seeing a fat woman falling in love and being treated well in a relationship. So, I very much wanted to explore that.

Part of it was very therapeutic. You sometimes have these core beliefs but then you have trouble actually applying them to your real life. So it was therapeutic to recognize what I believed about the world but had trouble feeling about it in me, so I wrote about it, and processed it, and really worked on it.

I was diagnosed with depression pretty early on; I was 12. I’ve been in therapy and on medication for almost 20 years, and it was a very lonely experience as a kid. I was also diagnosed with ADHD in high school and it was very isolating, I thought I was the only one that felt this way. It was also something I was told to keep to myself so I didn’t scare people, because I did have more high-support needs for my mental health in high school and I was in special ed for my ADHD. 

As I got older I became more open because, honestly, I’m tired. Some call it oversharing but I don’t care anymore. I felt so ashamed of the fact that my brain worked differently for most of my life but I just don’t care anymore, I don’t have the energy.

But one thing the book community really taught me as I met other fat readers and autistic readers and queer readers and other marginalized voices, is that all these cool people I met deserve to feel represented and I wanted to put that out there.

I used to feel so alone and I wasn’t. My struggles were real but the way I felt was not unique in any way. Depression is not a unique situation, pediatric depression is not a horribly rare thing. It truly feels so isolating, but I want to put it out there that it’s not. That’s part of the disease and everyone lives it differently, but I want to represent those different support levels. 

Katie’s latest release in the Quiblings series, On My Side, follows Lorenzo “Ren” Quinn and Audrey Hinton. By day, Ren is an elementary school music teacher, but by night, he’s an audio erotica creator, and Audrey is his biggest fan! After Ren starts teaching Audrey’s daughter piano lessons, she turns from his childhood crush to friends-to-lovers as they navigate breaking their rules and letting each other into their lives and hearts.

Leah: Tell me all about On My Side!

Katie: I loved the idea of writing a Sunshine x Sunshine romance but they both have diagnosed chronic depression. It’s something I struggle with too. I would always joke that I’m grumpy and sunshine and my girlfriend would tell me, “No, you’re sunshine and have depression.” So I really wanted to explore how depression impacts your personality and how you act.

Audrey is very guarded; she has a past where she’s very much ostracized and Ren’s very much the golden boy who people pleases, really shows up for everybody, and finds his worth in that. So this is him learning that he’s okay on his own and he doesn’t have to give everything up to be good and loved, and her learning that she doesn’t have to always keep walls up.

It’s really cute because as they start to become friends, they’re so horny for each other immediately. And Ren is Demi(sexual), which is another thing I really got to explore. I realized I was Demi a couple years ago and that was very interesting because there were times where I kept thinking, “Is the stress I’m feeling caused by my religious trauma? Sexual trauma? Or am I just a weirdo?” And then I realized I was Demi and thought, “Nevermind, this checks out!” So exploring it with Ren and figuring out how it works for him, because people on the ace spectrum are not a monolith, was really fun! I also love the idea of him being involved with sex work and being Demisexual.

Ren’s someone who is put on a pedestal, the perfect son and everybody loves him. But, he has this secret side and she’s (Audrey) the first person to get to see that and it’s very cool. The big thing is that Audrey knows his alter ego, she’s his biggest fan, listens to all his audios, and has no idea it’s him until she does. He’s very anonymous, no social media, he changes his voice, it’s really an alter. But he’s a teacher, so she knows something very intimate and private about him and could really ruin his life, and he has to just trust that she won’t. This conflict is so vulnerable. 

Then Audrey’s daughter, Piper, she steals the show. She’s autistic, she’s sarcastic, and funny, and her special interest is music so Ren is her piano teacher. She also tries to catnap Ren’s cat repeatedly. She’s probably one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written.

Audrey and Piper, I like to say they’re like Rory and Lorelai if they actually went to therapy and had healthy boundaries (for the most part). 

Leah: What is your favorite part of On My Side?

Katie: So it’s toward the beginning, but Ren is teaching his first piano lesson. Audrey used to be his older sister’s best friend, so he knew her growing up and he was in love with her. This was the love of his life at nine-years-old which is so much fun. But she sees him after so long and she totally wigs out! She just keeps thinking that he cannot be her friend’s annoying little brother and just keeps thinking, “Oh god! Oh god!” 

She’s just like, “Gotta go bye,” and yeets out of there, so Ren tells Piper that he doesn’t think they should do lessons anymore. Piper has a whole mother(!!) moment with Audrey. She doesn't want this to affect Piper, so the next morning, Audrey shows up with a ceramic mug of coffee on the seawall to apologize. They’re very soft and cute and awkward but trying their damn best!

Leah: What has been the most fun thing about working on this book?

Katie: Honestly, it's been Piper. She's just such a little spitfire. Just developing her character, and I do plan on writing her own book eventually! I love her, she reminds me of a mix of Nic and Hunter. She’s very spunky, very dry and sarcastic, and she has her sensory issues.

And I love her so much, she’s just so funny. One of my favorite parts is when she’s at her first piano lesson and Ren says he knew her mom a long time ago, like 15 or 16 years ago and Piper’s just like, “Are you my dad?!” And it’s the way she and Ren become besties.

There’s another part where she keeps going and staying at a friend’s house and Audrey comments how weird it is that the house is always empty and Piper is like, “Let’s be so for real, you dummies.” 

She’s been such a fun character and such a pleasant surprise. My beta readers were saying she’s like a third main character and she’s so central to the story. She really is the reason they’re brought together and she’s the reason both of them undergo so much growth and healing. She’s the best, I love Piper!

Leah: If your books got turned into a movie, who would you cast as the characters?

Katie: Okay, so for Ren, Logan Lerman with that floppy hair. For Josh, he was very inspired by Zach Mikko, who’s a plus size model. Nic is really tricky, but for Hunter I would want either Sabrina Carpenter or Renee Rapp, just some tiny, little, yappy blonde. Jo and Audrey are also hard because they were inspired by a lot of plus size Instagram models.

Leah: Do you have anything in the works you’d like to talk about?

Katie: Yes! My next project is a standalone Christmas novella and it’s sapphic. It’s called Ice Cold Witch and it’s about two former teen stars from a TV show that’s a mix between Gilmore Girls and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and they hate each other.

Their names are Annabelle and Lucy and they call each other Annahell and Lucifer and I love them!

And then I have started the fifth Quiblings book. I don’t want to give too much away, but there is a big Easter egg for it in On My Side. I have the tropes but now I’m just figuring out how it’s all going to play out and it’s a trope that I want to do something different with but I’m having fun with it.

Leah: What are you most proud of in your career so far and where do you see your career going?

Katie: I am most proud that I've continued to write and publish, even though it gets really hard. Marketing is my personal hellscape, but this is also just the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life. It really feels like this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, like I'm living out my purpose. Even when it’s hard and I don’t want to write or edit, it still feels like this is where I’m supposed to be. 

I’ve met so many cool people because of this, like my assistant at Love Y’all, Kate. We met because she slid into my DM’s while I was writing From the Start and she thought it sounded good. She paid out of pocket to come support me at Love Y’all, and I have assistants who are going to do the same at Romance Con. And Ricki, she’s fantastic and she’s one of my beta readers now. I’ve met so many people who mean so much to me, who have done so much for me.

So that’s where I want my career to go. I want to get to a point where I’m able to give back, both to authors who are in a similar situation that I am in now and to the people who have believed in me.

I even have a friend who proofreads for me all the time and I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have people who see what I’m doing and not only want to support me, but believe in me and want to give me their time. It’s so humbling and overwhelming.

I believe what you give to the world is what you get back, and I’ve already gotten so much back. I want to keep putting out that energy of believing in people and to continue doing that.

I want to be able to support myself financially and go to more cons and meet people. I want to be able to write full time. I also decided I want to become a USA Today Bestseller!

On My Side comes out July 29th and ARC signups are still open if you’d like a chance to review Katie’s latest release early! Click here or check their socials for the link. And be sure to pick up From the Start and Back to Me to immerse yourself in the world of the Quiblings as you anticipate Ren, Audrey, and Piper’s story!