About me

These are just some basically bullet-pointed things I’ve thrown together of things you may like to know to get to know me a little better.

• Why Kate Rivet?  And how is Rivet pronounced?
  • I’ve always liked the first name Kate – my real first name is not a hugely common one, and I’ve always been jealous of those girls who could get their own customized pencils/mugs/license plates/etc in stores!  If I wanted something, we had to try to special order it.  As for Rivet, I kind of stole it from a hockey player (Craig Rivet) because I loved the way it sounds.  And it’s pronounced Riv-ay, the `t’ is silent!

• Did you go to college to learn how to write?
  • Unless you count my semester in English 102 (I got to skip 101 based on my SAT scores!), then no!  I definitely would like to take some writing classes in the future, though, because I love learning new tricks!

• What made you get into pharmacy as a career?
  • It was a total accident.  I got a job working as a cashier in a pharmacy chain, and one day they needed someone to help in the actual pharmacy to ring the register there.  I got sent back, and when I finished my shift that day, I told our manager that if I wasn’t transferred into the pharmacy full-time, I’d quit.  I had been unhappy as a cashier anyway, and the pharmacy staff was completely wonderful.  I have always liked learning something new, and the pharmacy presents a new challenge every day.  It’s something I really got into, and I have a real passion for outside of writing.

• How long have you been writing?
  • I’ve been writing poems and short stories since I was first able to string a sentence together; I’d guess I was probably about 6 or 7 when I completed my first actual short story.

• Have you ever been published professionally before?
  • I had some poems published in poetry.com compilations under my real name when I was young, but I never bought those.  I also used to write for my middle school literary magazine and for the middle school newspaper as well, but that’s about the extent of my writing career up until now.

• What kinds of stories are your favorites to read?
  • Honestly?  I’ll read pretty much anything.  I do tend to favor some of the older teen fictions/adult contemporary books, because after a long and stressful 8-hour workday, I don’t want to be challenged all that much more.  When I’m off of work, I’ll read just about anything that stimulates me, and I still love poetry, too.

• Who are some of your favorite authors?
  • I love reading, so I have a ton of favorite authors.  I got into the Gossip Girl series when I was a teen, so I like Cecily von Ziegesar, and have read the entire Gossip Girl, Gossip Girl: The Carlyles, and the It Girl series’.  I have read everything by Meg Cabot and love her to pieces.  I read the Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging series (and bought and loved the movie!)  and I even had the pleasure of meeting Louise Rennison once when she was in Pittsburgh at a Borders near me.  She had a great talk, and my mom and I both walked away with autographed copies of her books.  On the more adult side, I love Lauren Weisberger, Johanna Edwards, and Sophie Kinsella.  My favorite romance novelists are Deirdre Martin andRachel Gibson.  I own every single book Deirdre Martin has put out, and I am closing in on finishing my Rachel Gibson collection.  I’ve loaned their books out to friends who don’t really like romance novels, and they have had to grudgingly admit that they enjoyed them as well!  I’ve also just gotten into Laura Florand’s books, and while I enjoy a love/hate relationship with them, they’re all intriguing stories!  I also enjoy William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, on the other end of the spectrum.

• Why focus on sports romances for your early books?
  • Like I said, I’m a big fan of Deirdre Martin and Rachel Gibson, and when I stumbled upon Body Check by Deirdre when in 2003, I was absolutely thrilled.  I was actually at Borders with my friend at the time, Heather, who had heard of it.  We opened it up to a random page and started reading, and both of us owned the book within a week (she bought that single copy that day, and I followed through when the next one came in).  I’m a big hockey fan, and I played soccer as a kid too, so I love soccer as well.  I got See Jane Score by Rachel next, and I was hooked.  I knew that if I ever wrote any romance novels, they’d be based on sports.

• What teams do you support?
  • My number one hockey team is, and will forever be, the Pittsburgh Penguins.  I grew up watching Mario Lemieux, and I remember being at the Civic Arena as a little kid with my dad, and occasionally, my mom as well.  I missed a total of zero games for two years in a row not that long ago, and student rush was my savior.  I’m proud to still support the Pens, and am glad to watch Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin tearing their opponents up now.  My other favorite hockey team is the Toronto Maple Leafs. As for soccer, I support Toronto FC from the MLS, but my true love lies in Arsenal FC in London, in the Barclay’s Premier League and FC Barcelona in the Spanish La Liga. I’ve seen Arsenal live twice at their home stadium, Emirates Stadium, in London, and have twice had tickets to see FCB at Camp Nou, but neither Camp Nou game worked out with my travel schedule.

• How did you come up with your characters?
  • I based my first heroine, Nikki, somewhat on myself.  They say to write what you know, so since I’ve worked with approximately 10 pharmacy students in my 5+ years in the pharmacy, I know some of what they go through.  Plus, Nikki’s love is pharmacy, so that mirrors me a little.  Besides that?  It’s pretty much all fiction.  There are different aspects in all of my characters that I would love to hope I could embody, but otherwise, they were a product of my mind. Otherwise, I tend to have crazy dreams that kind of inspire me, and I make sure to use the heroine in the dream as a model for the one that ends up on paper.

• Any secrets you’re willing to share from the creative process?
  • Sure!  From my first two books, I can tell you these few things I found so important to my process: #1 – coming up with names is tough!  I frequently used baby name sites, and actually even used one with popular names the year I was born for my first book, since I figured the characters were around my age.  #2 – make Google your best friend!  I’ve been to Toronto and seen a lot of things there, but Google made it that much better so I could find out about different restaurants in town that I’d never been to so I could create places similar to them.  Also, since I had never been to London when I was writing those ones, Google told me anything and everything I needed to know of different places my characters could visit, and Google Images gave me a great sense of what it would be like to be at most of those places.

Any other questions you’d like me to answer?  Feel free to drop me a line, and I’ll answer them and put them up on this page!