Look Up: An Interview with Kate Folk

Dear Reader,Have you ever had a thought or habit so shameful, so plainly weird, you could never dream of speaking it out loud? Trust me, reader, our main character Linda has you beat. Follow along on this absurdly salacious story of a woman whose erotic obsession with planes is derailing her whole life. You will gasp, you will gawk, but I believe if you let yourself, you will also see seeds of your own reflection. Sky Daddy has been my most anticipated release of 2025, and I could not have been more thrilled to chat with Kate Folk about this perfectly unhinged and beautiful book.— Maddie Grimes, Parnassus bookseller

Kate Folk | Photo by Andria Lo

Maddie Grimes: Before Sky Daddy came out, I was a huge fan of your short story collection, Out There. I’m curious if Sky Daddy ever started out as a short story, or what made you realize that this premise was different and that Linda was a character you wanted to spend 350 pages with?

Kate Folk: I always knew this one was a novel. I felt like there was so much to explore in the idea of a woman who’s sexually obsessed with airplanes. I thought of it as a study of a fascinating, flawed character, similar to some of my favorite first-person narrated books, such as Lolita, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and Convenience Store Woman. While I typically think of a short story as focusing on one moment or incident in a character’s life, I wanted this story to have room to meander. I believe that the ideal form of a story is embedded in its DNA, and as a writer my task is to find that form.

MG: Sky Daddy falls into this subgenre of unhinged female main characters that really seems to be having a moment in the spotlight right now. For you as a writer, does the increased popularity of these “unhinged” books give you more freedom to explore and push boundaries, or do you feel constricted, like there is more pressure to compare yourself to others?

KF: I’m a fan of many of those books, though I try not to think in marketing terms while writing. I think the term is useful in bringing readers to the book who will potentially be into it, but it can backfire in that it creates an expectation for them that the book never set out to fulfill. For instance, I’ve seen some people wanting it to be “more unhinged.” I do like that there is such an appetite for these books—particularly for books about weird, complicated women. In years past, there’s been discourse around the “unlikeable woman” in fiction. Readers have had less tolerance for  weird, messy, or otherwise “unlikeable” female characters, while embracing male anti-heroes in all forms. It seems like that is changing now, which is great to see. I always found the imperative for characters to be “likeable” to be strange, anyway. To me, it’s far more important for a character to be interesting than to be likeable.

MG: When I was reading this book I realized how much terminology and jargon actually exists about airplanes that I was completely ignorant to, but of course for Linda all of this lingo is like a natural second language to her. What was your research process like for Sky Daddy?

KF: In writing this novel, I didn’t need to be an expert about aviation, but I needed to get close to Linda and her obsession. Linda follows planes furtively, using the internet and apps, and I did the same. I wrote the book over a period of four years or so, and that whole time, I felt like I was seeing the world through Linda’s eyes, even when I wasn’t actively working on the book. I downloaded a flight-tracking app, and would always look up planes I saw flying above me, to see what type of plane they were and where they were headed. I became like Linda, my gaze fixed to the sky. The most intensive research for the story itself involved a later part of the book, when Linda takes many flights in quick succession. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out what a particular plane’s daily schedule might be, and to imagine how someone would go about booking multiple flights on it.

MG: Beyond its attention-grabbing premise, what I love most about Sky Daddy is what I see at its heart. To me, what’s so special about this book is that each one of us has our own private inner worlds and thought lives that we would never want to share with another person, and reading Linda’s story gives us a kind of permission to bring these hidden parts of ourselves to the forefront, acknowledge them, and understand that we are not so alone after all. Can you speak to this aspect of the novel and how Linda might be a more relatable character than people would expect?

KF: Yes, I think that’s a great reading of the book. While I don’t share Linda’s desire for planes, I channeled my own feelings to write her character. In a way she is a vessel for some of my feelings of being on the outside of “normal” society, looking in. I think many of us can relate to her in how she feels a bit alienated and like she is constantly
performing a role, either to get people to like her or to escape being judged. Her desire for planes can be read as any unusual desire that we are ashamed to admit to.

MG: Another interesting theme for me as a reader was how Linda’s obsession with planes is really intertwined with her isolation. Linda is a deeply lonely woman, and I wonder if in your mind this loneliness is caused by her secret obsession, or is it the other way around? How can these two traits fuel each other?

KF: Linda is very isolated, but I’m not sure she feels lonely most of the time, or at least, she isn’t quite aware of how lonely she might feel if she allowed herself to. I think she would like to have more connection with other people—and gradually accomplishes this over the course of the novel—but any potential loneliness is compensated for by her joyful connection with planes. I think she also sees solitude as the price she must pay to continue pursuing what she believes to be her destiny. Linda has a spiritual outlook on her life, realizing her time on earth is only temporary, and prioritizing the eternal over the day-to-day.

MG: Obviously I’m obsessed with your work; so I want to know what’s next from you! Is there anything you’re working on now you can hint to, or goals for future projects?

KF: Thank you! I’m working on another novel that’s very different from my previous work. It’s set in the early 1990s in Iowa, and the main character is an insurance salesman. I’m thinking of it as a suburban noir.

MG: Thank you so much again for taking time to answer my questions! To close, we always end with this: What is your favorite thing about independent bookstores?

KF: Independent booksellers have such evident passion for books. I love how every store is unique, and booksellers are so creative in setting up displays and staff picks sections. Independent bookstores’ enthusiasm for Sky Daddy has been incredible. As an author, it makes it all feel worth it.

Sky Daddy is on our shelves now!