What is the title of your latest release?
HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE WOODS
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Basic Instinct. But with bears!
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I had two reasons for setting this book in the wilderness: first and foremost, and very pragmatically, it’s an elegant solution to the thriller writer’s biggest problem, which is “how do I prevent these characters from pulling out an iPhone and ruining everything.” The second is that the wilderness is a character unto itself, and a place that reveals the true character of the people who travel through it. There’s no better place to find out who you are – or to learn the truth of who someone else is – than in the woods.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
I would prefer not to.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Contents may explode.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
A poem about how to survive a bear attack. It goes like this:
If black, fight back.
If brown, lie down.
If white… goodnight.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I always start by reworking whatever I wrote the day before.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Spaghetti carbonara. My husband and I learned how to cook it after visiting Rome ten years ago and its existence is proof of the divine.
Describe your writing space/office!
I have an incredibly cute writing desk that I have not used even once; I always end up sitting on the living room sofa instead. Usually with a cat on top of me. There is a cat on top of me now.
Who is an author you admire?
Lionel Shriver. I interviewed her last year and she’s the most fearless writer I’ve ever met.
Is there a book that changed your life?
Several! THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, when I read it in high school, completely transformed my understanding of what a novel could be. Lolita taught me that even the most depraved subject matter can be wickedly funny and deeply sympathetic if you tell it the right way. And thanks to The Shining, I have spent three decades being completely terrified of bathtubs.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I teach yoga at a local studio twice a week, and my agent called 15 minutes before my Thursday evening class, while I was getting ready. I still had one shoe on. When she told me the book had sold, I thought I was going to faint – How TO SURVIVE is my sixth novel but it was the most harrowing submission process I’ve ever had. The manuscript had been out there for months, and I was starting to think nobody would ever want it, so this was really dream-come-true territory… which made it challenging that I then had to spend the next 90 minutes leading a vinyasa class like nothing had happened!
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Lately, satire. I think it’s a dying art form but it’s so wonderful when done well.
What’s your favorite movie?
The Shawshank Redemption
What is your favorite season?
Fall, followed by winter; this is the obvious choice if, like me, you love being outdoors but hate being covered in bugs.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
In a place where the lighting is low enough that I still look 27. I was thinking I might spend this year’s birthday in an abandoned mining shaft.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
It’s been off the air for a few years, but Better Call Saul is a fantastic work of television.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
This is like being asked which of my fingers is my favorite. They’re ALL my favorite!
What do you do when you have free time?
Squander it on something ridiculous, like arguing on social media with someone whose username is DongFart69. Then, when I’m thoroughly disgusted with myself, I go outside.
What can readers expect from you next?
I’m at work on a new novel. I’d rather not reveal anything else at this point, but I will say that it doesn’t have any bears in it… or at least, not yet.
HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE WOODS by Kat Rosenfield
Wild meets The Wife Between Us in this page-turning thriller, set in Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness—the treacherous final stretch of the storied Appalachian Trail—an addictive tale of passion, betrayal, control, and what it means to survive.
Raised by a doomsday prepper and hardened by the startup world, Emma Sharp has learned how to endure—especially in her marriage to Logan Grant, a charismatic tyrant who keeps her under tight control. To Emma, her marriage is a cage: it keeps you in, but it also keeps you safe. Until it doesn’t.
When Emma forms an unexpected bond with Logan’s former girlfriend, the two women form a plan to help Emma take her life back. Destination: the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.
After all, bad things happen in the woods all the time.
As the three venture deeper into Maine’s backcountry, desire and dread curdle into something unpredictable, dark, and deadly. Someone is lying. Someone is watching. And in the remote heart of the forest, someone is about to be lost . . . or found.
How to Survive in the Woods is a heart-stopping knockout of a novel, by turns smart, psychologically rich, and deliciously dark. In her masterful hands, Kat Rosenfield asks us to consider what it means to be a survivor—and what, or who, you would sacrifice to stay alive.
Women’s Fiction Psychological | Thriller Psychological [ Harper, On Sale: March 10, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063467484 / ]
Buy HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE WOODS: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Walmart.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Kat Rosenfield
Kat Rosenfield was born and raised in Coxsackie, New York, and worked as a production assistant, publicist and copywriter in New York City before finding her niche in writing for teenagers. Her first novel, AMELIA ANNE IS DEAD AND GONE, will be released by Dutton in July 2012. When not writing fiction, she can be found contributing entertainment news and commentary to MTV’s Hollywood Crush blog and lecturing on proper flirting techniques on Barnes & Noble’s SparkLife. The name of her hometown is not pronounced the way you think it is.
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