An Interview with Kate Campo

Kate Campo is originally from New England. An only child, she grew up reading voraciously – creeping around her neighborhood like Harriet the Spy, or curling up to read Little House on the Prairie when it snowed, imagining that she was living in a log cabin. After college and a gap year, she began medical school, deciding to pursue primary care and ultimately practice near her hometown.

She is currently an academic primary care physician with a weighty CV and experience in epidemiology and population health, but her two favorite things are still writing at her laptop on quiet Saturday mornings and curling up by the fire with a good book.

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Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

Honestly, it was easy. I was looking for a title that meant one thing in the world of medicine, but could be taken another way in the context of the story. Back when we had paper charts in hospitals, the pages we wrote patient notes on were all titled ‘Progress Notes.’ I actually tried to find a photo of one of them for the cover, but they seem to have disappeared. And, of course, the title also refers to narrator Grace’s progress through her residency as she becomes a fully-fledged physician.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

It was really cool. I love the cover. The artist I worked with at Atmosphere asked me some questions to get a sense of what I was looking for, and what he came up with wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned, but it was better. I love that the colors are kind of moody, and I think it gives a reasonable sense of what the book’s about.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I learned to read at a very early age and always had a book in my hand everywhere I went when I was growing up. I honestly still carry a novel in my bag most of the time, in case I wind up with a few spare minutes in a waiting room or something. I have a ton of favorite writers – in no particular order, Marisa de los Santos, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Jennifer Weiner, and tons of others.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I’m a physician, obviously, now, but I had SO many jobs when I was coming up through school. I’ve been a cocktail waitress, a chambermaid, a hospital transporter – all kinds of things. I had a summer job picking lobster and crab meat at a fish market one year. I can take a crab apart in, like, ten seconds.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

It’s funny, because the thing that made me most anxious about having the book out in the world was that people would read it – both people I knew and those I didn’t. And that has actually turned out to be the coolest thing. It is so interesting, hearing people’s reactions to your writing.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

I actually make a playlist for each book I write. This one has mostly songs that were popular in the late nineties and early noughties: Zombie by The Cranberries, Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, Miles from Our Home by the Cowboy Junkies, and Through the Dark by KT Tunstall. The narrator’s name comes from a Sarah McLachlan song, Full of Grace, that is also on the playlist.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

I hope that for people in medicine, they feel validated and seen, and also that it gives them hope that they’ll transform into a strong and compassionate physician. I hope that for people not in medicine, reading this gives them a window into who their doctors really are – real people with real lives who sacrifice and put aside a lot to take care of patients – and also that the story gives some visibility to family medicine as a specialty.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I’m actually in the final stages of editing my second novel, Service, which will also be published by Atmosphere Press. It’s also about a female primary care physician but focuses on a single month of inpatient service in a busy city hospital, so I think it has a different feel to it than Progress Notes.

I have a third novel that I have really liked working on but it needs more work, so I can’t wait to dive back into that one.

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

It has been a really good experience. The best part of it has been the developmental editor that I got to work with – she is very smart and sees things that I didn’t see that made both books a lot stronger, I think, than they were. I have really loved the process of meeting with her, hearing her reactions, and then getting to put some of our ideas into action during the editing process. I also really liked working with the artist who did the covers. The other parts of the process were very efficient, and the communication has been great.

I think what I would tell other writers is that publishing a book felt like almost as much work as writing one – just a different kind of work – but that work was really rewarding and interesting, too. If you love writing, then it’s really fun to work through this part of the process. I had a great time.

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