Q&A with Mackenzie Reed, debut author of "The Rosewood Hunt"

Welcome to the interview 🗣️

It’s a beautiful day in the city, and I’m delighted to get to introduce you to this Q&A I did with Mackenzie Reed! Mackenzie is an author, a friend, and a coworker, so we’re connected in like three different touchpoints lol.

Her debut, which comes out in about a week and a half on Halloween, is called The Rosewood Hunt and is a YA mystery thriller treasure hunt bonanza. It sounds SO fun, I’m actually about to start reading it in literally a few hours and can’t wait, and Mackenzie is just…such a lovely human.

I hope you enjoy our conversation, and do go ahead and preorder The Rosewood Hunt1 because it comes out soon and you won’t wanna miss it!

Karis Rogerson: Where did your love of storytelling, specifically through writing, come from?

Mackenzie Reed: I think I always just loved it. I grew up in a very big Italian family and we were always getting together for dinner and it involved telling stories around the dining room table. That’s where it first bloomed — those are some of my earliest memories.

I got into songwriting as I got older and got into music. I’ve been super influenced by Taylor Swift, who is such a good storyteller, and other artists. I got into musical theater so for a while my storytelling was focused around music.

I had a shift in college where music wasn’t working out and I started taking novel writing seriously and that’s where it shifted from music to writing books. I always used to create stories around music videos. Movies would end and I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I created alternate universes in my head…

KR: Why do you write?

MR: I genuinely feel like I don’t know what to do with all my thoughts and everything in my head. I think I always kind of live one foot in the make-believe and one foot in reality. So i feel like I write, personally, as a way to cope with reality. Maybe that’s not healthy, maybe I just need therapy.

It’s always been such a comfort to have a place to pour all the stories and characters in my head and flesh them out on the page. Now that i have my first book coming out…reading has always been a comfort, and it’s my hope that my books can provide that same sense of comfort and escape to other people. That they find their way to people who need stories about friendship and adventure and a high-stakes mystery.

KR: Can you tell me a bit about what inspired The Rosewood Hunt?

MR: A few things: it was first inspired bc my friend had put a word generator in our chat and you were given five words and had to write a pitch around it. I wrote a pitch about a girl whose family fortune goes missing and she has to go find it. All my friends were like “this kind of slaps.” It’s transformed so much since then!

Something I really loved thinking about was I loved Knives Out and The Inheritance Games and those are very popular pieces of media — but always from the perspective of someone who had a fortune bestowed on them — in my head I was like well if my grandpa died and gave the fortune to somebody else…I’d be after that myself. I really wanted it to be a story from the perspective of somebody in the family.

KR: What was a highlight of the writing process for this book?

MR: I’ve been discovering I don’t love drafting, so it wasn’t drafting (laughs). When I was doing revisions and I did them with my agent, I remember we got on this call and she was like…I’m gonna say something and it’s kind of out there so stay with me…it was a bunch of things, but that round of revisions was so fun because it was the last round before going on sub. Even though I was nervous…

I love how when you write a story, I can only see [what I created], but with other’s input you can change the story and your vision for it can change. It makes you realize nothing is ever stuck or stagnant, it can always change and grow, and that felt like a turning point for TRH.

KR: What about a highlight of the publishing process?

MR: The reader aspect! It’s so cool for people to tell me they’re excited to read the book, or for anyone who’s had an advanced copy to love it. There are a few people who’ve been like “this is my favorite book”… TRH is my favorite book!

Also, experiences like this. I love the interview and podcast side of it, I think it’s so fun to chat with other publishing folks…it makes it easier to make connections and make friends.

KR: What is a secret hope or dream for TRH that you’re okay making not-secret?

MR: I feel like i’m not secret about anything. I’m shameless about my dreams. Everybody tells you to level with yourself when it comes to listing…reset your expectations…I have, but secretly there’s still a piece of me that would love to see my book on a list. Any of them. My secret is I still hold that expectation even if I might get a little let down.

KR: Is there anything about this book that may surprise readers?

MR: A lot of people seem to be surprised at the amount of swearing in it. I guess I’m sorry. I just try to write authentically to each teen’s voice. So if people really looked at it they’d realize it’s not every teen! That’s been a bit of a shocker for some people. I was surprised I was even allowed to keep the swear words that are currently in it. I did cut back a little bit.

KR: What is your favorite place you’ve traveled to, and why?

MR: My time in Italy was a dream, it’s the only time I’ve ever been there and I spent a month there and I was in Bologna. I definitely love Rome — the ruins, the history, all of it. I thought it was so cool. My family’s Italian and it makes me so sad because my grandparents didn’t pass down Italian…but when I was there people would speak Italian to me and I felt so cool.

KR: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

MR: My biggest advice would be don’t prohibit yourself from doing certain things or celebrating certain things just because you haven’t hit certain goalposts. The goalposts are always shifting and it’s true. Finishing, editing, getting an agent, a book deal…it’s never-ending.

There were a lot of times where I held myself back, especially on social media, for the longest time I felt like I had nothing to say because I didn’t have a book deal — why would people want to listen to me? That’s such an impostor syndrome thought to have and I would hate for other authors to feel that way and feel … like I should have done this ages ago.

KR: Can you recommend 2-3 books?

MR: I’m in the middle of How To Find a Missing Girl by Victoria Wlosok — it’s such a delight, I really love it. It’s a YA thriller mystery feat a sapphic detective mystery agency. I also loved Joelle Wellington’s Their Vicious Games — so unique, it feels so fresh and atmospheric. And it had a hyper-specific setting. And sticking to the 2023 debut train — Skyla Arndt’s Together We Rot and Rachel Moore’s The Library of Shadows.

Alla prossima 👋

That’s all for today, folks! Stay tuned next week for more personal thoughts from moi. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and also let’s keep calling our representatives in Congress and the White House. The news out of Gaza continues to be heartbreaking. The news of rising Islamophobic and antisemitic attacks around the world and the US is horrifying and enraging. We can, and must, do better.