Interview with Mima Tipper, Author of Kat's Greek Summer

Posted by Holly Schindler May 13, 2025

Interview with Mima Tipper, Author of Kat's Greek Summer

Welcome to Smack Dab, Mima! Tell us a bit about Kat’s Greek Summer.

Thanks so much for the kind welcome! I’ve got to tell you: I read through all of your questions before starting the interview, and I’m so psyched at the depth and variety of the threads/topics you picked from the book.

And so, about the book: Kat’s Greek Summer is about a fourteen-year-old girl who risks all for family, first love and self-truth over one sun-drenched Greek summer.

A little more: soon to be high school freshman Kat Baker is all about training for the cross-country team this summer. Then her Greek mom knocks her off-course by dragging her to Greece. To meet the family. How can a girl train in ninety-billion degrees? And with a sharp-eyed yiayiá watching her every move? Determined to keep her running dream alive, Kat embarks on a risk-filled odyssey, discovering that self-truth is at the heart of dreams, first love—even family—and that it is up to her to speak up and claim the heritage that is uniquely hers.

I was so excited to see a book about a girl in this age range (14). It’s so overlooked—that strange area between MG and YA. Why did you gravitate toward writing for this group?

I don’t think I gravitated toward writing for this age group as much as to writing about a young character at a pivotal time in her young life, ready to make a huge transition. I see the move from middle to high school as just such a place. I have a lot of memories and feelings about that time in my own life, and wanted to reflect and imagine on that time for this story.

The journey of cultural identity is central to the novel. How much of your own experience influenced Kat's character and her struggle to connect with her Greek heritage?

My original plan was not to focus so much on the cultural identity struggle in the story. I was thinking more general, as in “fish out of water.” Only as I wrote, so many memories and feelings about my own half Greek half American childhood surfaced, and my character Kat started asking some very pointed questions. Questions that had me digging very deeply into my own childhood struggle with my two cultures. A lot of what I found in my memories and my feelings ended up in the novel.

The setting of Paralia is vividly portrayed throughout the novel. Is this fishing village based on a real place in Greece that you've visited? Any tips for making a physical location so real on the page?

Paralia is based on my memories of the Greek fishing village where I spent my childhood summers. That village is called Alepahori, and it has changed a lot since I was young so I didn’t want to use it as an actual location in the novel. I know there are still many villages and communities in Greece that are very rustic, and I wanted to capture that feeling for this book. The word “paralia” means “beach” in Greek, and it’s such a musical word; I figured that was a good name for my fictional village. As far as making a physical location real on the page, I always try to use locations in my stories of places I’ve visited, whether a town, a house, or and apple orchard. Sometimes I visit the place again, and take copious notes. Whether I am able to visit again, or whether I simply have to remember, I spend a lot of time thinking of sensory feelings and details from those memories, and then imagine my characters experiencing those sensory feelings and details.

How did you approach writing the romance between Kat and Theofilus for a younger audience? The relationship feels authentic and age-appropriate while still capturing the intensity of first love.

I adore romance stories, always have, and wanted a romantic thread for Kat. Theofilus is very loosely based on a Greek boy I met during my 15^th summer, and I had a lot of fun thinking of that time and remembering my feelings around that crush, as well as crushes when even younger. I don’t know about other children’s or YA writers, but I think part of the reason I gravitate toward stories of children and teens is that I have very vivid memories of my childhood and teen feelings. I also have three children, so had a front row seat fairly recently to their early teen years.

Running serves as both a literal and metaphorical journey for Kat. What inspired you to make this activity so central to her character development?

When I began to envision Kat, I wanted her to be as opposite to me at that age as possible. With that in mind, I wanted to create a character who knows high school is going to be a big change and a big opportunity for change, and be proactive about her desire to find a place and fit in. When my own kids were starting high school, there was thinking and advice around choosing to be part of an athletic team because then freshmen were invited to come to the “pre-season” before school started—a good time to make friends, etc. That seemed exactly what would strike Kat, and cross country seemed perfect because at least in Vermont anyone is welcome to join as opposed to the more competitive teams. And from my own kids’ experience, the cross-country runners generally have trainings all summer.

Theofilus's artistic talents and dreams are really almost a complete opposite to Kat's running. Was there a particular reason you chose art as his passion?

As I imagined Theofilus, I knew he had to be a relative outsider to the village, and that he had to have compelling motivation to behave as he does through the book. Having him be an artist was also physically possible because art is an activity that has many portable aspects, and could be done at any time, so would work with his fishing/boat duties. I also thought that both he and Kat having strong and personal passions would give them a very natural connection point.

How did you decide which cultural elements to include (food, mythology, etc.)?

Oh, my, that’s a huge question. Many of those cultural elements came through little by little through all of my drafting. The food is all food that my own Greek yiayiá cooked for me during my own Greek summers. And I am a huge and lifelong Greek mythology fan. The original title of the book was “Greek God Summer” and back in those versions every chapter was Kat battling or experiencing something Greek mythology related. I’d have to go way back in my files to find one of those early drafts, but an example would be something like “Chapter One, Hermes brings a message”. Those chapter headings didn’t last, but the goddess Artemis played into some of the headings, and I found that Kat just kept looking to Artemis, kind of like a secret friend.

The novel ends with Kat embracing possibilities rather than with everything neatly resolved. The ambiguous ending is so tough to write! How did you navigate it while also giving the book a satisfying conclusion?

Thanks so much for saying that about my ending. As one of the themes of the book is claiming your “self” and your heritage, it was important to me that part of Kat’s journey is to understand how getting to the “top” or the “end” of something is not the actual top or end. That there’s always more. In that way, it made sense for her to reach one big goal, but that part of reaching that goal was to understand that there would be many, many more on her horizon.

What’s next?

I just signed a contract for my next book which will come out in the summer of 2026, and it is a contemporary paranormal YA. I’m pretty focused on Kat’s Greek Summer right now, of course, but I’ll be posting about my next book on my website and on social media soon, so stay tuned.