Kara L. Zajac

Kara’s Bio:

Kara Zajac is a freelance writer, chiropractor, mother, wife, entrepreneur, and musician. Her debut, The Significance of Curly Hair: A Loving Memoir of Life and Loss, won the 2025 IPPY Silver Medal for Inspirational Nonfiction and was chosen for the Best Books We Read in 2024! by the Independent Book Review. Its follow-up, The Special Recipe for Making Babies, was a finalist in 2022’s Charlotte Lit/ Lit South Awards for Nonfiction.

Kara’s work has been published in Bay Area Reporter, Lesbian.com, Voraka Magazine, Story Circle Anthology, Imperfect Life Magazine, Ripped Jeans and Bifocals, and Just BE Parenting. Kara keeps people laughing with her blog www.karaZajac.com and is happy to speak at book clubs and grief support groups. She resides in North Georgia with her wife, Kim, and daughter, Senia Mae.

Check out Kara’s Website

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Blurb:

Growing up, Gram was my best friend. We shared a double bed in my
family’s cottage until I was nine. Fifteen years later, I got the call that she’d
fallen and hit her head. All I could see was her mouthing, “Don’t you love
me enough to come back home?” I wept on the plane as I began to write
her story, the one she’d asked me to write in ninth grade.

Gram and I were polar opposites. She spent much of her life barefoot and
pregnant. I was a gay, career-driven, independent decision-maker.
Searching through old relics, we found a time capsule in Gram’s drawer,
revealing clues to her dark era, her 1957 breakdown. Dark green pills, a
bank book, scribbles on an envelope: answers to unasked questions.

Shesurvived stress and abuse without things I take for granted: income, a car,
stocked pantry shelves. She did it all with unconditional love, never
revealing her pain.

More about Kara

Q. What publisher are you with?

A. Atmosphere Press

Q. What Genres do you write?

A. Romance, Memoir

Q. What made you join the sapphic lit pop up bookstore?

A. I love all the people who hang out in that sacred space.

Q. What was your first pop-up event?

A. I had a Sapphic Pop Up interview in the fall of 2025. Felice made me feel so comfortable while talking about a subject quite uncomfortable to me, writing my first sex scene. Talking to her me feel like we were sitting on the couch and sipping a cup of coffee.

Q. What made you start writing?

A. I was an okay writer for years, with notebooks full of partially written scripts. When I got the call that my grandmother was dying, I hopped on a plane, trying to see her before she died. The enormity of the grief I was experiencing and the realization that even with my greatest effort, I wasn’t going to make it opened up this emotional cascade in me. The words suddenly just flowed out. I wrote the first several chapters on the plane.

Q. Do you use the same creative process for all of your books?

A. I don’t use the same process. I have to be hit with a certain creative flow. Sometimes I will start with a chapter that is not in chronological order, but I’m feeling the story at the time. I try to let the words get on the page and then go back to edit later. Sometimes my initial emotions are accurate, but they could be phrased better. It’s important to get them on the page before they are erased by the other thoughts that flow through my brain.

Q. What is your latest book? How did you get the idea? When does it come out?

A. I just pitched my second book on Friday at Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully being released in 2027. The Special Recipe for Making Babies is a follow-up to my first memoir. A funny, laugh-out-loud tale of our roller coaster ride to an unconventional pregnancy, and what we learned along the way about people, parenthood, and what’s really important.

Pitch: Two women decide to get pregnant, thinking that finding a father is going to be the biggest hurdle. When an infertile friend offers up her hippie husband in exchange for co-parenting rights, what could possibly go wrong?

Q. Describe the area where you do most of your writing.

A. I have a fantastic writing desk in a secluded nook that I never use! Most of the time, I write in bed, next to this fantastic window that lets in the perfect amount of light over my left shoulder. My coffee cup sits close by, and my Chihuahua lies parallel to my right thigh. A perfect combination.

Q. Do you have a newsletter?

A. I have a website that has all of my blogging history. It not only sells my books but also lets you read about my hysterical parenting/marriage/life mishaps. I may consider a newsletter in the future. Recently, I’ve been doing more video reels found on Instagram and TikTok about 2x/weekly.

Q. What do you wish more readers knew about the writing/publishing process?

A. You pour all of your heart and soul into your project, it gets published, but the real work comes afterward. Marketing and selling the book. How do you get your audience to find you? Building your platform before the release is so important and maintaining connection afterwards is the real part of a book’s success.

Q. Who is your favorite sapphic icon (literary or not)?

A. Marie Santora

Q. You’re in charge of hosting brunch for a dozen people, what is on the menu? (Money is no object, so you can have it catered if you’d like)

A. Peach Bellinis and crab cake Benedict, for sure. There’s the Owl Diner in Lowell, MA, that has the best home-fried potatoes. I think their secret is Hungarian paprika. I would definitely add their potatoes to the brunch menu. Maybe some cucumber and green onion cream cheese finger sandwiches on that thin-sliced Pepperidge Farm white bread. 🙂 I’ll keep thinking. I hate to miss a meal!