For many stars, writing a children’s book is a fun side project they do to capitalize on their fame. Kate McKinnon—a Saturday Night Live alum who has starred in recent movies like Barbie and The Roses—is certainly famous. But the truth is that she had dreamed of writing a novel for middle schoolers since her mid-twenties, years before she even auditioned for SNL.
As a child, McKinnon had loved books about slightly oddball characters, like those found in Roald Dahl books. Her favorite heroine was Pippi Longstocking, whom she played in a kindergarten performance. She loved the character so much that she would show up at school for years in a full-on Pippi costume, complete with pipe cleaners in her hair to mimic the heroine’s iconic protruding red pigtails.
After graduating from Columbia University, between auditioning for sketch comedy roles, McKinnon sat down to write a middle-grade novel of her own. Holed up in her apartment, she plotted out a story about a trio of sisters in the Victorian era who don’t fit in in their stuffy town, where girls are meant to be prim and proper.
The problem was that she could not get past the first chapter; she just wrote and rewrote it, frustrated that it wasn’t quite hitting the right notes. Then, in 2012, at the age of 28, McKinnon snagged a spot on SNL and quickly became one of the show’s biggest stars, leaving very little room for her novel. “It was very much at the back—and the middle—of my mind,” McKinnon recalls. “Every time I had a week off, I would work on it.”
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In 2022, McKinnon departed SNL and finally had time to devote to the novel. After marinating on it for more than a decade, it came together, and she landed a book deal with Hachette. Her book, The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science, debuted in 2024 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. She’s just released the second book, called Secrets of the Purple Pearl, in what will eventually become a series.
I sat down to speak with her about her creative process, and why we should feel free to pursue several dreams at the same time. Here are three things I learned.
She Didn’t Let A Lack of Expertise Stop Her
McKinnon studied theater in college and had spent years training as an actress and comedian. She had never studied creative writing, but she didn’t let that stop her from taking a stab at writing a novel. “I didn’t know anything about writing,” she recalls. “I didn’t know you’re supposed to write a whole draft before going back and fixing the first chapter. So I just fixed the first chapter, probably 500 times.”
Many writing instructors urge their students not to get hung up on the details so early on. But McKinnon’s approach was actually helpful because it allowed her to figure out many aspects of the plot and the characters. It was an unconventional approach to character development, but it helped her create her first three characters, the sisters Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee.
But after writing several drafts of the first chapter, she felt like something was missing. “My big problem was that I was writing about three oddball girls who had no adults in their life validating them,” she says. “It ended up being sad every time I wrote it. Then I felt there needed to be a mentor figure who recognized the good in these girls.” This figure ended up being Millicent Quibb, the title character of the series.
McKinnon was also noodling through the broader themes of the book she wanted to communicate. While she was very interested in painting these quirky characters, she also wanted to say something more profound about identity, and how hard it can feel not to fit in. “The themes eluded me for the longest time,” she says. “I needed to know what I am actually trying to say here.”
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Ultimately, McKinnon didn’t let her lack of formal training prevent her from throwing herself into novel writing. In fact, it’s the process of trial and error that has allowed her to hone her craft. Now, McKinnon has novel writing down to a science. It took her more than 12 years to write the first Millicent Quibb book, but she wrote the second one in a matter of months. “Left to my own devices, I would never complete anything because I am so hard on myself,” she says. “But being under a deadline is what allowed me to complete this.”
She Wove Her Other Passions Into This Project
While McKinnon hadn’t trained as a writer, she did have other skills that most writers don’t have: an ability to build quirky, complex characters from the ground up.
To create the characters in her book, McKinnon would pace around her room speaking in funny voices, which is something she’s enjoyed doing her whole life (and that eventually became her full-time job on SNL). “In my mid-twenties, before getting on SNL, writing this book was almost like doing sketch comedy, without anybody there to watch you,” she says. “I was just doing it alone in my room.”
It’s been a very effective strategy. All of her characters are memorable and hilarious. Eventually, she was able to bring all of these characters to life in the audiobook of the series, which she voices along with her sister, Emily Lynne.
It’s Important For Her To Speak To Children
Most of McKinnon’s career has targeted adult audiences. Her first acting jobs were in comedy, starting with The Big Gay Sketch Comedy Show and then SNL. And much of her acting has been in movies targeting adults, like The Roses, Bombshell, and the TV series Joe vs. Carole on Peacock.
But McKinnon is also eager to reach children, particularly at this moment when the world feels so volatile. Writing the Millicent Squibb books has been meaningful to her because it has allowed her to connect with children and give them hope. Indeed, the Squibb character is inspired by the many mentors in her own life who believed in her and helped her find her path. But looking back, her childhood seems idyllic compared with what children are dealing with today. “Young people today are up against a whole host of problems I could not even conceive of when I was in middle school in the ’90s,” she says.
Her hope is that her voice gives children some joy in a stressful time, but also empowers them to act to make things better for themselves and others. “I think this genre is not just fun, but hopeful, because it focuses on questions of identity and moral engagement in society,” McKinnon says. “It’s about figuring out who you are so that you can help other people. That’s something young people today can’t ignore the way I could.”