Kathleen Rooney
Author Interview - Kathleen Rooney
Author of Man Overboard!
Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick hates the ocean. Has always been terrified of it. And now he’s in a real pickle.
Drifting alone in the sea after falling (or jumping? He can’t remember as the all-inclusive drinks on the cruise he was taking with his extended family were, well, inclusive) Kick must survive. Breath by breath, hour by hour in the lonely sea.
As the waves crash over him, so too do the thoughts and memories of just how he got there. A Thanksgiving cruise with an obnoxious brother-in-law he has to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at. A father who gives the Great Santini a run for his money. And a mother, who already left the family boat, so to speak, a long time ago. His family may be complicated, and the pains of life may seem unbearable—infuriating enough to leap from the deck—but maybe the will to survive is stronger.
Man Overboard! is an inventive, slyly hilarious, and inspiring novel about what it means to be alive, stay alive, and what keeps us going no matter how choppy the waves of our journey become. Hold on for dear life!
Author Interview - Kathleen Rooney
Author I draw inspiration from:
For Man Overboard, I drew on what is possibly my favorite novel of all time, Moby-Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville and Gerald's Game by Stephen King, which is a stellar example of how to write a riveting story when your protagonist can't really go anywhere.
Author Interview - Kathleen Rooney | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
There's nothing quite as absorbing as reading a really good book on an airplane; it makes the journey fly (ha) by and I find myself more capable of being moved to laughing out loud or crying when I'm around 30,000 feet up.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
Getting stuck in an elevator with Flora Poste, the heroine of Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm would be a hoot. She and I would discuss everything that was wrong with the world and arrive at our floor with hilarious yet effective plans to fix everything.
Author Interview - Kathleen Rooney | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
When I was around 4 years old and my mom would read Mother Goose nursery rhymes to me. I knew I needed to write poems myself (once I learned to read and write).
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
Hardback for collecting and keeping forever, paperback for reading and passing on or putting into the little free library, ebook for a trip where I need to travel light or for a book like Stephen King's IT that is just way too heavy to carry around. I never do audiobooks but I'm glad they exist; I just can't remember things as well if I have not read the words, plus I don't like headphones or earbuds and don't drive, so I think a lot of the scenarios where people really get a lot out of audiobooks don't happen in my life.
The last book I read:
At the recommendation of my friend and fellow author Megan Kirby, I read Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver and found it tense, cold, subtle, weird, and gripping. One of the co-protagonists/antagonists (it's hard to say which is which, by design) Anna is a children's book illustrator, not unlike Jansson herself, but in this story we are very very far from Moominland.
Author Interview - Kathleen Rooney | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Pen and paper for jotting ideas in my notebook, typewriter for Poems While You Wait, and laptop for everything else.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Oreo from Fran Ross's phenomenal satirical 1974 novel Oreo. She is witty, determined, and unflappable and she does not suffer fools.
Author Interview - Kathleen Rooney | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
The proprietor of an immensely popular and profitable roller rink in the heart of Chicago.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
1970s -- I love the color and the sleaze and the abundant hair.
Place I’d most like to travel:
The Galapagos Islands because wild animals are the coolest and islands are scary (surrounded as they are by the enormous ocean) and magical.
My signature drink:
A negroni (like my character Lillian Boxfish)
Favorite artist:
Rene Magritte because he is what I think of as a "writer's painter," clearly as interested in the meaning or poetry or potential narrative interpretations of his work as he is in how they appear on the canvas.
Number one on my bucket list:
Oh man, I suppose going on a cruise? I'm terrified of the open water and cruise ships freak me out, but now that Man Overboard! is coming out, it seems like I might at some point have to give a cruise a try.
Anything else you'd like to add:
Thank you so much for this opportunity!
Find more from the author:
@kathleenmrooney.bsky.social
@poemswhileyouwait
https://www.facebook.com/kathleen.rooney.18/
About Kathleen Rooney:
Kathleen Rooney
Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. She is the author, most recently, of the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Her latest poetry collection Where Are the Snows, winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize, was released in Fall of 2022 by Texas Review Press and her latest novel, From Dust to Stardust, came out in September 2023. Her debut picture book Leaf Town Forever, co-written with her sister, Beth Rooney, was released by University of Minnesota Press in the fall of 2025. Her fifth novel, Man Overboard!, is forthcoming with Gallery, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in July of 2026. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches at DePaul.
