Kitty Johnson is an award-winning author of emotional stories about empowerment and living your best life.

Kitty lives in Norwich, Norfolk in the UK, with her partner and son, when he’s home from university. Her novel Five Winters was awarded the Star Award 2024 by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. A nature lover, Kitty enjoys walking in the local woods and by the sea in Norfolk with her dog. Also an artist, she paints and makes collages in her studio when she has time. Kitty enjoys a challenge and once performed stand-up comedy as research for a book - an experience she found very scary but hugely empowering. Kitty has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and has also published several novels as Margaret K Johnson. Follow Kitty on Amazon for news of new releases: amazon.com/author/kittyjohnsonbooks

Q & A with Kitty Johnson

Why do you write under a pen name?

 I’ve published a lot of books in lots of different ways! Prior to my Kitty Johnson books, I self-published several books under my own name – Margaret K Johnson – and I’ve also written lots of short fiction for people learning to speak English as Margaret Johnson. (These are published by Cambridge University Press and Cengage Learning). With so many different titles to my name, it was getting a bit confusing. Hence, Kitty was born! I chose the name Kitty because it would have been the name I gave to my son, had he been a girl.

 When and how did you first start writing?

 I went to art college straight from school to study Fine Art, Painting. After I’d completed my degree, I had no idea how I was going to support my career as an artist. Then I thought to myself, ‘I know! I’ll write a best-selling romance novel so I can carry on painting!’ I thought it would be that easy. It wasn’t. However, by the time I’d finished writing the novel that ended up being rejected, I’d well and truly caught the writing bug. It took a few more goes before I had a novel accepted, and the money I got for it was by no means enough to live on, but I was ecstatic.

What did you spend the first money you earned from your writing on?

 One very unglamorous thing – a new heater for my flat – and one slightly more glamorous thing. Well, it should have been glamorous, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. My then boyfriend had never flown – we were both pretty young at the time. I thought it would be romantic to surprise him with a flight in a light aircraft with some of my earnings. He was indeed surprised; thrilled too - and we duly turned up at the airfield and boarded the plane. All went well until the pilot asked my boyfriend if he wanted to have a go at using the controls. Alas, I’d forgotten all about my travel sickness when I had my bright idea about the surprise… Things quickly went down hill after that.

What is the hardest thing you’ve had to learn as a writer?

Oh, goodness. The process of writing is about continually learning to do hard things. The more experience you get, the more difficult things seem to pop out of the woodwork! I think, in my case anyway, it’s because I always want to challenge myself rather than just coasting along. But I do remember it took me a long time to really get to grips with how to bring a character to life when I was writing in the third person. I remember one editor telling us would-be authors to imagine our heroine had a camera on her shoulder - (a bit like a parrot). That advice didn’t work for me at all. In the end, I learned to treat the third person - she/her, he/him etc, etc - pretty much the same as the first person writing. You definitely learn by doing as a writer, or I do anyway.

Have you ever made any mistakes or done anything you regret as a writer?

For quite a long time after I started writing, I tried to fit myself to genres that weren’t quite ‘me’ because I thought this was the best way to make money. I think this is quite a common thing for new writers to do, but it doesn’t work, because you can never be authentic, and the reader can tell! To write well, you need to be prepared to be vulnerable and open and to use that vulnerability in what you write. It’s difficult to do that when you’re not being true to yourself. As soon as I was wholly myself, my writing took off.

What’s your daily writing routine?

Well, I have to say, this is changeable! I went through a phase of doing my best work at my local library, and, when my son was young, I was even known to write in soft play areas accompanied by the noise of screaming children. However, mostly these days I start my writing day very early in the morning, sitting up in bed with a giant cup of coffee. After looking at my phone for a while, I write in my notebook for around an hour. Then I get up, have breakfast and I’m at my desk by 8.00am in time for London Writer’s Salon where I set my goals, listen to an inspirational quote and write in the online company of 250 or so other writers for 50 minutes. When the session ends, I carry on for another 30-60 minutes before stopping to take the dog out. After various household activities I have my lunch and then - very importantly - I have a cat nap, a strong cup of coffee and biscuits (usually ginger nuts) and I’m good to go for another 1 - 2 hour writing stint. Interestingly, in the afternoons, I often play music while I write. In the morning, I never do. Cat naps are key. No afternoon writing would be done without them!