Check out our interview with Kvita Eyi, the author of "Ready Oar Not."
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
Tragically, I used to be a rower. Look, it’s the greatest sport in the world, but it has a reputation for creating cult-like little communities at the high school level. Oh, there go the crew kids. It’s such a weird and specific sport. It runs in my family (in so far as things can run in your family when it’s just your older sister and your younger one). I had thought for a while that I might, maybe write a rowing book because I have a wealth of memories that were too good to pass up. Being a writer is kind of all about accumulating memories you can mine for inspiration.
I also know what it’s like to have a little sister and be willing to trade anything in the world to save her from bad things that might be coming her way. So this book is about rowing and its transformative ability to bring people together, and it’s also very clearly about family, and sisterhood, and healing from your upbringing.
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
Reading Rainbow is a cultivation of our imaginations. I didn’t grow up reading books with queer protagonists; there weren’t many available to me in the mainstream that would have given me the opportunity to engage with them. And to a certain extent I will always be growing up. I will always be coming out, negotiating myself and my identify, and finding the ways I fit (or don’t!) into an ever changing world. Reading Rainbow is having the chance to envision new lives and ways of living, and offering us the opportunity to expand ourselves as a result.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
The alternative is hopelessly boring. A varied cast, a well-developed one, will carry a reader far. You’ll find that sometimes there isn’t much difference between people from disparate backgrounds or identities, and sometimes there’s a huge amount of variety from people who on the surface are the same. The great joy of writing is teasing out those subtleties, enlarging those contrasts for drama, and finding ways to challenge preconceptions. I think of writing as connection, between myself and the story, but also between the readers and the world. Or readers and each other! You will face people utterly unlike yourself in life. My hope is that empathy and curiosity are born in the pages of books, and grown outside of them.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
READY OAR NOT is a rowing romcom about two coaches who have a year to fall in love. When Maeve, the main character, returns to her hometown to take custody of her sister, her sister conspires to play matchmaker, tricking Maeve into a job interview for head coach of the high school women’s crew team. Maeve used to be a rower, but it’s been a while, and she’s only supposed to stick around for a year to get her sister off to college. Her life is complicated by the fact that her childhood crush/neighbor is head coach of the men’s team at that very same school. Think of it like a sports romance meets a workplace romance by way of Emily Henry.
I wrote it for fun. Just for the joy of it! I’m a fantasy writer under a different pen name (AM Kvita) and thought I’d take a break from my elaborate world ending fantasy plots to hone my character work in the best genre for that sort of thing: romcoms. I wrote it just to share between myself and my partner (who the book is dedicated to). Before I knew it, I’d written an entire novel and my agent was telling me it was actually pretty good. Who’d have thought? Not me. I hope readers feel the fun I had crafting it.
What can fans expect from your book?
Banter! Found family! A sexy pining mmc! Eldest daughter x cinnamon roll boy next door! Best friends, sisterhood, some rowing stuff (slightly mangled), a quarter-life job crisis or two, and a desperate attempt to heal your loved ones by healing yourself. It’s messy, but it’s honest.
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
Hopefully another rowing romcom but stay tuned for more on that. Otherwise, as AM Kvita I am the author of The Green Witch Cycle, a fantasy trilogy set in a magical New York, filled with all sorts of paranormal creatures. If you like my romcom and think “wow, I wish someone could cast magic though?” then you’ll love AN UNLIKELY COVEN, book 1. AN UNCERTAIN MAGIC is also out, and AN UNCANNY GOD will be out in 2027. That’s right, you don’t even have to wait long to read an entire series. Dive in now! Happy reading, everyone, you can find me on Instagram @AMKvita or on my website amkvita.com.
