Page of Cups Interview with Author Kate Folk
By FT Kola
Our Page of Cups interview series explores how individual writers and artists connect with and use Tarot as a tool in their creative practice — and their life’s journey.
Here, we talk with Kate Folk, a fiction writer based in San Francisco. Kate is the author of the short story collection Out There (Random House), which Chang-Rae Lee likens to: “if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror.” Kelly Link compares it to “a drawer full of the most beautiful knives.”
The collection is eerie and uncanny, but also alive, witty, and vulnerable. Kate’s stories of high strangeness are immediate gateways into the most fragile and deeply human experiences. You can find Kate on the site formerly known as Twitter @katefolk, and at katefolk.com.
I found Kate in an alleyway in San Francisco, where we shared pelmeni and borscht and talked into a tunnel of icy Pacific Ocean wind, while also being lit up by a brilliant slant of California sunshine.
FTK: Do you have a relationship with the Tarot?
KF: I have a Tarot app on my phone that I use compulsively when I’m anxious about the outcome of something or trying to find guidance for a decision. I think I kind of abuse the Tarot, though, because I ask [my question] multiple times if I don’t like the answer, which I know I shouldn’t do. I also have a deck of Tarot cards that a friend sent me — actually, a person I knew from Twitter — who knew I was interested in it and said their mom is a Tarot reader and you’re not supposed to buy your own Tarot deck, so luckily, I was gifted one.
[FWIW, Typewriter Tarot believes you can totally buy your own deck, and you don't have to be gifted your first set of cards, though it's nice when they come to you that way!]
FTK: When did you first become aware of Tarot?
KF: Maybe four years ago. My friend Lisa Locascio Nighthawk was into it, and maybe she did a reading for me at some point. Then I think it just became more mainstream; people were talking about it a lot.
FTK: So you don’t do your own readings, apart from the app, and you have friends or other people you know do Tarot readings for you?
KF: I’ve actually had professional readings, too. Two or three times I went to a woman who did a reading, and it did seem pretty accurate, which was spooky.
FTK: Were those for personal things, or have they ever been work-related or related to your writing?
KF: I think when I first went to her, it was more for a personal thing. But then I also wanted insight about writing. Probably the second time I went, it was more writing-focused. I had written a novel — this was three years ago, maybe — that I felt really hopeful about, and she kind of told me that it wouldn’t pan out… but down the road there would be more success. And actually, that novel didn’t end up getting published, and I felt that the Tarot kind of bore that out. She was saying that I was still planting seeds for a future success, and that it wouldn’t be happening within the next year.
Photo of Kate Folk by Andria Lo.
Out There by Kate Folk.
FTK: And that future success was Out There?
KF: Yes, I think it was Out There, the Stegner Fellowship, [getting the collection's title story published in] The New Yorker, all of that stuff. So, in retrospect, she was right that the year she was forecasting for was laying groundwork, but it wasn’t coming to fruition yet.
FTK: It sounds like these readings had to do with writing in a professional sense, rather than decisions related to the writing, or the interiority of the work.
KF: I’m usually asking more about the external outcome of things, but sometimes, with the novel I’m working on now, I’ll check in at the end of the day with the Tarot and ask how it’s going. For a long time, it said it wasn’t going well, and now it seems it’s started to say that it is going well.
FTK: Oh, wow! Does that make you feel differently about the writing?
KF: Yeah, I guess it reinforces that it’s on the right track. Whenever I make a new big decision in how the story’s going, I feel momentarily confident about it, like, 'Oh this has got to be it, finally!' And then, as I explore it more, I realize it probably wasn’t the right direction and I have to try something else.
FTK: Is the Tarot ever in conflict with your feelings, or is it pretty accurate?
KF: Of course I always hope it will say everything’s on the right track. I’m always gunning for The World or The Moon or The Empress or the Ace of Cups, so I’ll be disappointed for a moment when it’s a less positive card. But then I adjust quickly. Sometimes I think, 'Well, what do the cards know anyway?' And sometimes it just takes the wind out of my sails a bit in a way that is probably for the best. It motivates me to keep working and trying new things.
FTK: So, when the Tarot has said maybe it’s not going so well, that has made you sit back and rethink decisions about plot, or character, or just how you’re proceeding?
KF: I think it’s given me pause maybe to take a step back and think it through more before deciding that this is the final version.
FTK: Are there certain cards that come up for you a lot, or cards you feel you know and have a relationship with?
KF: Temperance has been coming up a lot. I was feeling anxious about a teaching job I took for the fall and wondering how it’s going to affect my writing, and I got Temperance for that, which I guess is good. I don’t really know that much about the Tarot, so I can’t interpret it correctly. I just get annoyed when I get reversed cards because I feel like it’s always bad!
The Temperance card from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck.
FTK: Because you see Temperance often, even if you’re not knowledgeable about that particular card, have you gotten an impression of that card over time, or a personal understanding of it?
KF: I see it as good decision-making, having things in balance, not being too extreme in any direction. It seems like a good card for managing the elements in my life.
FTK: In terms of other types of spirituality, divinatory practices, or even religious practices, do you feel any of those inform your work? Do you use other things to make creative decisions?
KF: I do meditate every day, and that’s been really helpful in getting to know my mind, even if I’m not able to tap into the meditative state of not thinking about things. Just being able to sit still and observe what I’m thinking about and what’s crossing the screen of my mind is helpful.
FTK: Do you feel that when you’re encountering the cards in your app, that you’re still in control of the world? That the cards are reflective, or providing data, and so they’re allowing you to change the trajectory of things?
KF: I hope so. I’m not totally sure about the notion of free will, and whether it exists, or whether everything is pre-determined by everything that has come before it.
FTK: We often think of Tarot as purely divinatory, as in, it’s going to tell you what fate has in store for you, and that fate and destiny are fixed. But I find the Tarot is extremely flexible and has flexibility built into it — it reflects you back to you, and that allows you to consider what want to do or not do. In that way, there’s no psychic skill necessary to use it, just the willingness to consider what it presents to you. It feels that you use Tarot that way, as a way to pause and consider decisions you’ve made?
KF: I like the idea of fate and destiny. I remember a Tarot reader telling me that we can’t change our fate, but we can speed up or slow down our progress toward it, or something like that. I think of Tarot, similar to astrology, as a way of shaping my life into a narrative, which is comforting and imposes a sense of meaning to the decisions I’ve made. In that way, it seems complementary to writing — the desire to tell stories, and to frame my own life as a story of some kind.
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About FT Kola
FT Kola is a fiction writer interested in all aspects of faith, symbolism, bodies, strangeness, and the weird movements of time. She lives in Nashville with her little black cat.