Kate Santini
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Bestselling fantasy and literary fiction author, R.F. Kuang, is joining the English Department in the Spring to teach two creative writing courses – an introduction to prose narrative and an intermediate course on speculative fiction. In 2018, Kuang graduated from fellow Jesuit university, Georgetown, and has since published seven novels, including Babel (2022), Yellowface (2023), and Katabasis (2025), while pursuing a PhD at Yale. She is known for her contributions to the “dark academia” genre and ability to blend historical elements with fantasy. This week, the Spire had the privilege of sitting down with Kuang to discuss her career and what she is most looking forward to achieving at Holy Cross.
Asked about what it is like seeing her novels gain traction in online communities such as “Book-Tok” and “Book-sta-gram,” Kuang admitted she was not very familiar with how her books have been perceived online.
“I am not on social media. I have an Instagram account but [ran by] a social media manager,” Kuang said. “I think it’s best for authors to not be in the same online spaces as their readers because that’s for readers to have to share books and discuss them.”
“It’s fantastic that we have these platforms for young people to recommend and discuss literature with each other,” Kuang added. “So my position is always how cool they are doing that, but I am going to get back to work.”
Kuang also expressed her excitement about teaching creative writing courses at Holy Cross. She is eager to teach students her craft while simultaneously reacquainting herself with the basics of writing fiction.
“The fun thing about writing is that you would never, so far in your career, not benefit from going back to the fundamentals,” Kuang said. “I am actually planning on doing all the same exercises as my students and if I assign a project that is a short story, I will also try to write a short story over the semester.”
Asked which of her novels was the most fun to write, Kuang replied, “Yellowface because I got to be really mean.” She elaborated that the years in which she was drafting the novel were really intense periods of charged online debate and rhetoric.
“It felt very cathartic to observe that behavior and then put it on a page,” she said, adding that it was interesting to imagine what it would be like to be in the center of public discourse and controversy.
“I think a lot of people would like to read and write unlikable characters because fiction is the outlet [in which] to explore this,” Kuang said. Exploring the consequences of giving into intrusive thoughts through writing can be “very fun to witness.”
Many of Kuang’s novels, most notably Babel, explore topics such as privilege and inequitable access to institutions of higher learning. Asked about how she reconciles the value of higher education with the knowledge that most people do not have the opportunity to pursue it, Kuang responded that she is involved in “public-facing scholarship and initiatives to take the classroom off campus and to other communities.”
She added that she is always seeking opportunities to share resources online, host public talks at libraries or writers’ workshops that are made available to a wider community.
“I think every time people are critiquing higher education it is not because we believe the academy does not matter but rather, that the form in which it exists is exclusionary,” Kuang said.
Asked about her favorite literary genres to read and write, Kuang responded that she has “a very broad palate” and that she is always open to experimenting with new literary styles. However, she ultimately admitted that, “fantasy will always be my first love because you have the imaginative freedom to do whatever you want and then come up with alternate ways that the world could be.”
In particular, she admires authors like Kazuo Ishiguro and Ursula Le Guin for their ability to blend genres seamlessly and write about experimental, forward-thinking themes.
Finally, when asked the age-old question – why Holy Cross – Kuang responded that with her background at Georgetown, she was drawn to Holy Cross because of its Jesuit ties, something that she finds to be “really rare” in modern universities.
“To teach and to gain knowledge and to develop yourself as a person not just for personal ambitions but with the explicit mission of walking with the poor and powerless,” Kuang said.
Getting a chance to interview Kuang before she formally joined the Holy Cross faculty was a privilege. Be sure to keep an eye out for her two creative writing courses that will be included in the Spring 2027 course catalogue that will be released in the upcoming weeks.
Image courtesy of Holy Cross Magazine
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