By Andrea King
Stacey Kade is the daughter of a minister and a music teacher, and because of this, she felt she needed to read her Harlequin romances on the sly in the family basement. In present day, Kade is the author of two YA series (The Ghost and the Goth trilogy and The Project Paper Doll series) as well as 2 adult romance novels (738 Days and Starlight Nights.) Her newest YA novel, Finding Felicity, is stemmed from the author’s love of the TV show and her own experience as an anxiety-filled high school senior, longing with expectations for the college experience.
Before becoming a writer full-time, Kade was an award-winning copywriter for several Fortune 500 companies.
Kade enjoys living in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, a retired racing greyhound, and as she says “one naughty French Pointer puppy.”
Her genre of writing is contemporary YA but has also written paranormal and sci-fi YA novels. Finding Felicity is her most recent YA novel and was published March 20, 2018. The gist of the story is that Caroline Sands has never been really good at making friends. Her parents’ divorce and moving to Arizona 3 years ago certainly didn’t help. By watching the reruns of the show, Felicity, online, Caroline has reinvented herself, but now it’s time for Caroline to go off to college. Her mother has insisted she make real friends, not ones manufactured from a television series. If she cannot prove this in her first semester away from home, her mother will make Caroline live at home and go to lots of therapy. Can Caroline achieve this when she throws away her script and deals with real life on real time?
Kade’s favorite character in Finding Felicity is Caroline’s roommate, Lexi, because she never hesitates to show her temper. Unlike Caroline and Kade herself, Lexi is not a people-pleaser. She seems like she doesn’t even care if people like her or not.
When Kade starts writing a new book, she begins with a notebook and a “cool” pen. She allows herself to write a horrible first draft with notes about the story, plot, and characters. She has said the terrible draft takes off the pressure. Once the draft has been revised and she is not totally embarrassed by it, she moves on to the computer and shares it with her critique partner and a few other trusted people. After getting their feedback, she sends it to her agent.
Kade views writer’s block as a symptom, not a disease. To elaborate, she thinks this particular symptom is caused by something else. For her, she knows her writer’s block first comes from fear- she doesn’t want to mess up. Secondly, her writer’s block comes from her wanting to force her characters into doing something that seemed so much cooler in her head. To reign in her fear, Kade is always reminding herself writing is always a work in progress.
Kade admits she has wanted to see The Ghost and the Goth as a tv show or even a movie. Reevaluating her cast, she sees Richard Harmon as Will and Jessica Roethe as Alona.
As Kade writes, she can see several of her favorite authors on her shelves. They include Jane Austen, Meg Cabot, Claudia Gray, Sophie Jordan, Lisa Kleypas, and Rainbow Rowell, but she admits she could go on “for days and days” when listing favorite authors.
If Stacey Kade ever gets the chance, she would love to go to England to see where Jane Austen lived and wrote, stay in a castle, and write and finish a movie script.
Stacey Kade can be reached at Stacey@staceykade.com and on her website staceykade.com.