truancy writing | kate davis jones

i'm kate davis jones, collaborative writer

I started surfing in 2016. I’d just read Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, a memoir by journalist and surfer Bill Finnegan, and I was so captivated by his descriptions that I had to try it myself.

My first surf lesson was at Carolina Beach here in North Carolina. A teenager dropped the longboard on the sand, showed me proper hand and foot placement, then had me practice my pop up over and over again. Finally, we went out into the water. He identified the right wave, and at the perfect moment, he shoved the surfboard and shouted at me to pop up.

The sensation of the wave picking up the board was magical. In that moment, I knew I had to surf more.

I was a different person in 2016. After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill in 2013 with a degree in American history and creative writing, I’d taken a soul-sucking job in advertising and barely lasted a year. I wanted my work to be meaningful, even if it was in a small way, like pouring a great cup of coffee for someone having a terrible day. In 2015 I went back to work in restaurants and began writing more on the side.

Restaurant work felt good. I loved making peoples’ lives immediately better with nourishing food and authentic hospitality. I loved the odd schedule, since it gave me time to surf. The work felt real; it connected me with my local community, and led me to the stories I wrote at night.

I started ghostwriting in 2019, working entirely in the world of romance. I wrote about magical bounty hunters, politically complex werewolves, tragic motorcycle gangs, and more. In 2020, as restaurants contracted, I took on more writing projects: I began to edit, outline, and work in different genres like YA and science fiction, and started working on my own books as well. From there, my collaborations only grew.

Now, in 2025, I collaborate on both fiction and story-driven nonfiction. I’ve worked on YA heist stories and vulnerable memoirs of resilience and trauma, with Hollywood screenwriters and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. My collaborators have self-published and hybrid published. They've been traditionally published by Harper Collins and Cambridge University Press, and have even been optioned by Disney. I focus on the collaborative writing process, which combines the service and relationships I loved in hospitality with the writing I love to do.

Every step of this winding path has prepared me to help you bring your biggest book ideas into the world.

The writing process is transformative. Shaping an idea into a coherent narrative and preparing to share it with the world will teach you a lot about your life and your values, and I’m honored to be a part of that process in any way.

I don’t surf as much as I used to. I’m more of a rock climber these days, But as a collaborator, I like to think I’m a little like that teenage surfer who gave me that life-changing push. You don’t need to dedicate your life to surfing to benefit from catching a wave.

get in touch: kate@truancywriting.com

follow me on instagram at katedavisjones


selected nonfiction work

books I love: The Loser (Thomas Bernhard), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (Patricia Highsmith), Days Without End (Sebastian Barry), Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (Bill Finnegan), The Odd Woman and the City (Vivian Gornick), Blockchain Chicken Farm (Xiaowei Wang)

movies I love: Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), Uncut Gems (Safdie Bros), 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger), Infinity Pool (Brandon Cronenberg)

music I love: Future Islands, Xing Zheng, Thundercat, Denzel Curry, SHINee, New Jersey jazz radio WBGO, UNC-CH college radio WXYC

home page portrait by Jih-E Peng

climbing at hidden valley in virginia