Ayo:- How to Survive in the Woods is as much as about the wilderness as it is about control betrayal and survival. What sparked the idea for the story.
Kat:- I love the wilderness as a setting for two reasons: first and foremost and very pragmatically, it's an elegant solution to the thriller writer's most annoying challenge, which is putting your characters into situations where they can't ruin the story by pulling out an iPhone. (After 6 books, the amount of time I've spent trying to figure out ways to separate fictional characters from their devices probably adds up to months at this point.) But the wilderness is also a character unto itself: a place where pretense falls away, where things come to the surface that you might have been able to keep hidden in more civilised circumstances. Which is to say, if you want someone to show you who they are? Take them camping.
Ayo:- What actually does it mean to be a survivor?
Kat:- I'm very interested in, among other things, how social media has caused "survivor" to become not just a descriptive noun but a personal brand — and an identity you can opt into because you like how it looks on you. It's central to the conflict between these three characters that each one is a survivor, but not necessarily the same kind.
Ayo:- One of the central questions in the novel is how difficult is it to decide what one would sacrifice to stay alive. If you had to, what would you sacrifice?
Kat:- When I was about 12 years old, I read a short story by Stephen King called "Survivor Type"; without going into detail, it involves a surgeon who ends up shipwrecked on a desert island where there's nothing to eat except his own body, and, well, you can probably guess the rest. I think about that story whenever someone asks me about extreme survival scenarios: would I cut my leg off to survive? Yes, but I think I'd draw the line at eating it. (Of course, this is easy for me to say now.)
Ayo:- Unreliable narrators also play a big and important part. Do you have any favourite unreliable narrators?
Kat:- The nameless narrator from Fight Club, Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, and Humbert Humbert from Lolita.
Ayo:- There is a great sense of place in How To Survive in the Woods and the Appalachian Trail play a big part. Do you think that the story would have worked if they were not in such a rural place?
Kat:- The central premise of How to Survive in the Woods is a riff on the setup of a certain mid-century French film (I won't name it here for the sake of spoilers, but anyone who's seen it will know exactly what I'm talking about) — and I have no doubt that the drama between these characters could have played out just as well in a different setting. But that would have been a different story; for me, for this book, I always knew it would happen in the woods.
Ayo:- How important is research and did you have to do much for How to Survive in the Woods?
Kat:- This book was born in the wilderness— I had the initial idea for the story while hiking to the very same pond where Emma, Logan, and Taylor spend their first night in the woods — and while I ultimately fudged some details of the trail here and there to better fit the story, it was very important to me that the setting and stakes feel real, especially to anyone who's spent time in the North Woods in Maine. So I did spend a lot of time hiking for this book, especially on and around the section of the Appalachian Trail where it takes place. I also had some subject matter experts for things I couldn't or didn't want to do myself, like apocalypse prepping, or mountaineering, or (most extreme of all) sleeping in a tent outside.
Ayo:- The book touches on themes focusing on emotional endurance, the morality of survival, and the dangers of toxic, controlling relationships. Was there a deliberate message that you were trying to convey about the characters' moral compasses?
Kat:- I think the great thing about fiction, apart from its entertainment value, is that it provides a place to ask questions about what it means to be human — who we are, what we do to each other — without needing to answer them fully or even necessarily at all. I'm draw to stories where some characters are more morally centered than others, but nobody is purely good or bad, and everyone is sympathetic — which is to say, you may not like what this person is doing, but you understand why they're doing it. I would say that How to Survive in the Woods is a place to explore these ideas and draw your own conclusions about them, if you're so inclined, but I would never tell anyone what those conclusions ought to be!
Ayo:- What are you working on next?
Kat:- I'm at work on my next novel, which I'm trying to peck away at in between promoting this book and my work as a culture writer. I'd rather not share many more details this early in the process, but will say I'm looking forward to doing on-site research in a place where there is a zero percent chance of being attacked by a bear!
How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfield (Zaffre) Published on 25th June 2026
Emma Sharp knows the rules of survival. From being raised by a doomsday-fearing father and hardened by the startup world, she 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 reclaim her life. Destination: the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail. 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.
More information about Kat Rosenfield can be found on her website. You can also find her on Substack and on X @katrosenfield
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