Took the leap and here I am now doing the author-illustrator gig full-time.
Yup, I’m stepping away from the life I’ve known for 10 years as a music journalist. For the meantime. Maybe. It was a long time coming and sometimes I can’t believe I’d actually turned in that resignation letter to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a full-time author-illustrator. You still might see my byline at Bandwagon Asia every now and then, but most certainly not on a daily frequency it appeared for almost five years.
In fact, shortly after my last day at work, our Editorial Director Camille Castillo called me to do an interview with Raymund Marasigan (literally a week after my retirement) about the Eraserheads‘ highly anticipated reunion concert Huling El Bimbo this December. “You’re the only one who can do it,” she told me, adding how this was going to be Bandwagon’s biggest story for 2022.
It was at that “casual conversation” where Rayms talked about his retirement from music, specifying how he’s ” technically semi-retired” since his daughter graduated from college in August. He went on to share what he’d been spending his time on, and guess what, it was still music! And it was more music than he worked on prior to his retirement. To that, I had to say, “You don’t sound retired.” And he ended up pointing out how I wasn’t exactly retired either. So, there we were. Two semi-retired people from the music industry, actually still involved in the music industry. I guess you never exactly leave the life you’ve always known after all.
Moving forward, I’ll be focusing now on my debut graphic novel SQUALO & MAGE, my picture book debut BIGGER THAN ME (with author Erica Simone Turnipseed), and lots of other projects I can’t talk about just yet.
Can’t wait to share with y’all what I’ve got in store. 2023 is gonna be a big one!
hi kara, been following you since you wrote for pulp. so excited for this new chapter in your life! congrats!