Follow Kate, subscribe to her newsletter, and checkout her best selling books:
- Kate Angelo’s journey from foster care to bestselling author is inspiring.
- Writing has been a therapeutic outlet for Kate.
- The importance of empathy in relationships is crucial for foster youth.
- Foster care experiences shape one’s understanding of family and belonging.
- Kate’s book ‘Girl Lost’ explores themes of trauma and redemption.
- Mentorship can significantly impact the lives of foster youth.
- Breaking generational cycles is essential for personal growth.
- Emotional support is vital for navigating life’s challenges.
- Foster youth need relationship skills to thrive in adulthood.
- Dreaming beyond trauma is possible with the right support.
TRANSCRIPT:
Travis (00:01.544)
Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Foster Friendly Podcast. I’m your host, Travis Vongess, joined by my cohost, Courtney Williams. Today, we are both super excited to be interviewing Kate Angelo. Did I say that right? Okay, I’m gonna redo it. Okay, so I was gonna ask you that at very beginning. Okay, so, take two. Welcome to another episode of the Foster Friendly Podcast. I’m your host, Travis Vongess, joined by my cohost, Courtney Williams. Today, we’re both really excited to be interviewing Kate Angelo.
who’s the publisher’s weekly bestselling author of Hunting the Witness. Selah Award winner of Deadly Holiday Hijack and Amazon Top 100 Bestseller of Driving Force. Kate works alongside her husband, championing stronger marriages and families. Her journey from foster care to bestselling author fuels her fast paced romantic suspense, where flawed characters discover hope and healing through life’s fiercest trials and relationships. When she’s not putting fictional people through the wringer,
She’s out creating real life happily ever afters in conferences and events nationwide. And I also want to mention Kate has also been a foster parent, is an adoptive parent as well. And so she has a wide ranging lens and experience around foster care. Really excited to have you on the podcast today.
Courtney (01:06.638)
that’s a safe thing.
Kate Angelo (01:16.161)
Thank you for having me. so excited to be here.
Courtney (01:18.958)
Yeah, me too. I was telling them before we started recording that I’m an avid reader. So I’m already on the right now. It’s on the wait list. But by the time you guys are listening, the book we’re going to be talking about will be ready for you to order. So I encourage you to order it. I already have, and I can’t wait to read it. Yeah, I was also reading on your website that growing up, you were a bookworm, a dog groomer, an exotic pet wrangler, horse trainer, cowgirl, and a teenage pool shark. Like you seem like you want to be everybody’s best friend. Everybody wants to be friends with somebody like that.
Travis (01:46.932)
Kate Angelo (01:48.685)
I was a very naturally curious child who did a lot of different things and just kind of dive into those head first. But reading has been one thing that has really stuck with me throughout all the years.
Courtney (01:48.82)
And I think we could do a whole podcast.
Travis (01:49.649)
Wow.
Courtney (02:06.262)
So I just got to know tell me what this exotic pet friend Wrangler like
Travis (02:06.357)
That’s funny. man.
Kate Angelo (02:09.773)
So if you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll get to see the picture and hear the story about how I had a pet lion as a child. so we had a pet lion living in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, maybe not the best situation, but that was part of it. My mom raised some exotic pets. And so I have had…
Travis (02:14.548)
Mmm.
Travis (02:18.579)
Wow.
Kate Angelo (02:35.113)
all kinds of different pets. I’ve had a baby bobcat one time. We had lots of exotic birds. We had the lion. We’ve had, you monkey and different kinds of like a prairie dog and ferrets and just all kinds of crazy things like that. you know, so I think that my husband has joked how he really wants to have a chipmunk. And I’m like, well, you have married the right exotic pet wrangler to get you a chipmunk.
Travis (03:00.436)
haha
And a chipmunk seems very tame compared to some of those other you have everything made me think of too like when people have like what it were the like what’s one little known fact about myself like you have like the epic list How do you even choose from?
Courtney (03:03.896)
That is awesome. It’s awesome.
Yeah.
Kate Angelo (03:08.737)
Yeah, right.
Courtney (03:17.922)
Thank you.
I was.
Kate Angelo (03:21.963)
It’s really fun to play that what is the game the two truths and a lie kind of.
Courtney (03:24.91)
You probably win every time, every time.
Travis (03:24.948)
Yes, two truths and a lie, icebreaker. That’s perfect. Every time. Oh, that’s great. Well, we’re going to just kind of start with kind of your own story and journey. You aged out of foster care, grew up with little guidance, and kept up with your love for writing. Talk a little about the role writing has played in your life and kind of from your younger years until now. And then let’s discuss girl loss.
Kate Angelo (03:31.393)
for sure.
Travis (03:52.097)
has just been released, book, give us a brief description of that as well.
Kate Angelo (03:57.591)
Great, that’s a big question there. So starting with how I grew up, obviously in like most kids in foster care, just this traumatic background, my brief childhood experience that I experienced, witnessing a murder, being present when my grandmother committed suicide, my biological parents did parental kidnapping back and forth from.
pretty much as early as I can remember until I was about 11 or 12 years old. And so there was a lot of that. then throughout all that, there’s a lot of psychological abuse, a lot of physical abuse. And so all of those things really just helped to shape me in a different way. I’m one of nine children, actually. And it’s really interesting to see just how that, what has happened to me versus where they are in this.
in this life and to see all the stereotypes that I now understand and research and how they play out in my own life plus other people that we know. So really for me, reading was an escape, but I didn’t pick it up until my sister brought home a copy of like a Stephen King novel, which maybe isn’t the best thing to read like in the third, fourth grade, you know? But I really enjoyed it and I really loved.
the deep storytelling and the characters and to see that they too were experiencing a lot of hardships, a lot of like inner turmoil as well as external turmoil. Stephen King really writes great characters. That’s just one thing that he does. And sometimes they rise above, sometimes they don’t. And that is just life. And so I did have an aunt who was like, you know what, maybe you should just read my Nancy Drews instead.
Courtney (05:45.838)
Hmm.
Kate Angelo (05:54.057)
And so she brought over like a library of Nancy Drew books. I read all of those and I just kept reading all throughout high school, different genres. I’ve read a lot of the classics, anything I could get my hands on. And now I’m very thankful for the rise in audio books because it allows me to keep going and keep reading. And even when I’m really, really busy. So that has helped me.
Courtney (05:54.35)
you
Travis (06:12.404)
Hmm.
Courtney (06:15.886)
Hmm.
Kate Angelo (06:19.947)
I didn’t know that I necessarily wanted to be an author. Some people are like, I just wanted to write my own novels. I have these stories that just want to burst out. It wasn’t until really like around 2019 or so that I felt like I really had these stories that I wanted to tell. And so I don’t just rush out and start writing. go and I learn everything I possibly can about something before I start to do it. So I went and learned a lot about how to write. I took a lot of classes and then
Travis (06:44.436)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (06:49.645)
And so I started writing, you know, really not that long ago. It’s really interesting because most people who are a quote unquote overnight success in our industry, we talk about it and say an overnight success really happens over 10 years. So you try for 10 years and then you have this overnight success. And for me, the journey wasn’t exactly that. And last year I was there a couple of years ago, I was speaking in a conference and someone was like, well, you’re the unicorn.
And I was like, you know, I just felt in my spirit that, like, I’m a Christian. So I just felt like God really said, you’re not you’re not a unicorn. You’re a job. Like this is me restoring you. And I was just like, wow, that’s amazing. So I put in some due diligence to become a writer. And from that, I really learned that I wanted to write. I wanted to write novels that don’t like push in your face a Christian faith, but that
Courtney (07:30.574)
Hmm.
Travis (07:32.82)
Hmm.
Travis (07:48.5)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (07:49.313)
really try to align with the parables that are in the Bible, some of these things like going after the one lost sheep, you know, that there’s one that, you what would you do to go save one person? And so that’s really the premise behind Girl Lost is it’s kids, like it’s adults who grew up similar to me. And so each one has like maybe bits and pieces of me or other people that I know into it. And what would happen if one person rescued you out of that?
Courtney (07:56.879)
Thank
Kate Angelo (08:18.773)
And so in Girl Lost, there’s a guy named Stryker and he sees these kids are falling through the cracks. And so he builds a an MMA gym where he teaches them discipline and it’s sort of, it’s a group home, like a group foster home. And he teaches them discipline and he teaches them, you know, how to get an education and all these life skills. And I don’t go into that a lot because these are the stories of the adults who came out of that.
Travis (08:32.83)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (08:46.561)
but they still carry all this trauma with them, you know, and that I’ve been out of foster care much longer than I was in foster care and I’ve been away from my childhood trauma and yet it still leaves its mark on me and it still rises up in different ways. And so it’s very interesting to be able to write those things in the characters. And occasionally I’ll see some people who will leave a review and they’re just like, I just can’t believe XYZ. And I’m like, well, you know, this is coming from a place of trauma.
Courtney (08:59.007)
and
Travis (09:16.113)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (09:16.385)
and these characters have gone through a lot and they’re trying to do better, but they might not always do better. And that’s really just how life is. So Girl Lost is about a girl who’s lost and it allows her to come to the page to find her own daughter. And she gave up, she had a teenage pregnancy, I would kind of say like a trauma bond relationship with this guy that was in the program.
and they gave the baby up for adoption and she decides she doesn’t have any blood relatives left. So she goes after trying to find that one, her daughter. And so that kind of just kicks off the whole story right there.
Courtney (09:55.759)
Wow. Like I said, I can’t wait to read it. And it is so interesting when you think about people who have gone through hard things and every kid that comes into our home, older kids, teenagers, we sit them down eventually and have this talk of, your past affects you, but it does not have to determine your future. And we tell them that we have seen so many kids who rise above and yes, it’s going to be hard and it’s going to take a lot, maybe a lot of time, maybe a lot of resource, maybe a lot of people.
Travis (09:56.244)
Well.
Courtney (10:20.92)
but you can rise above this and some people do and some people don’t and it’s really hard as a foster parent to see some of them that don’t or just can’t see how there can still be good even though looks like everything’s evil or good out of bad situations. So yeah, it like you kind of capture that of there’s both, there’s both endings sometimes for different people.
Kate Angelo (10:42.337)
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I really try not to focus too much on the negative side of what they go through, but still just to say that, you know, I think I thought whenever I was younger and I was transitioning from my biological family and into foster care, and even after that, I felt like there was like this, you know,
I’m just not normal and what is normal? And so to understand like what is normal? So that conversation that you’re having with your children is what is your normal? What’s your normal gonna be? Is it gonna be the same thing that you grew up in? Are you gonna be, you’re gonna come out of like this family of chaos and abuse and addiction and poverty and that’s gonna be your normal? That’s what normal is to you? Or do you want a new normal?
And can we look at what some new normals are and know that your normal is not gonna look like Courtney’s normal. It’s not gonna look like Kate’s normal or Travis’s normal because we all come to the page not only with different experiences, but also just our personalities that if I have nine siblings and two of them are considered successful, I would say for the most part who are at this point in their lives.
Travis (11:40.318)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (11:51.038)
Yeah.
Courtney (11:51.053)
Yeah.
Kate Angelo (12:02.157)
You know, how are you how does that happen? know, how what is their normal versus my normal? What is their success versus my success? You know what I’m saying? It’s really it’s really something that it’s eye-opening from this side of it at this age in my life
Travis (12:06.484)
Right.
Courtney (12:09.826)
Yeah.
Travis (12:15.892)
Hmm.
Courtney (12:18.254)
Yeah, yeah, a lot of insight and thought for you to share. Yeah, so going back to the book, it is the first in a series, the King Legacy series. What was the inspiration behind that whole series and what can we expect as readers in the future through it?
Travis (12:18.548)
Wow, big questions.
Kate Angelo (12:36.119)
So the inspiration again is what happens when one person invests in the lives of these people who might’ve been going just downhill. And when I say downhill, it’s just they made some choices that were gonna frame their whole life. And so in this particular book, it’s a teenage pregnancy. It’s gonna frame your whole entire life and then your decision that’s based off of that. It’s one decision after another and…
they can choose to do certain things. And so the character Luna actually chose to kind of walk away from everything that she knew in this small town to run from her problems. Like I’m just gonna run. But she ran to the military because that was an escape. But then because she had this training and she had this mentor who taught her that she was more and she could rise above, she just really excelled in.
the military, which then got her recruited into intelligence and then into the CIA and because she’s the perfect loner. She has no family. She has all this training and that kind of, and then she was able to just turn her back on her life and just become somebody else. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t remember what she came from and, and yearn to go back to it. And we even see that a lot in foster kids and adoptive kids really, even if you’re adopted as an
Travis (13:57.63)
Hmm.
Kate Angelo (14:00.757)
as an infant, there’s some point in your life where you want to turn and look back to where you came from and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. And so that’s kind of like where this particular story is. The next book that comes after this one, it doesn’t have a title yet. It’s two completely different people who were both headed to jail and they, know, one of them murdered somebody in like a self-defense situation that could have
Travis (14:04.776)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Kate Angelo (14:29.557)
changed his whole entire life to sit in prison for the rest of his life. And this, and Stryker pulled him out and said, let’s put him in my program instead. And so that changed the whole trajectory of his life, but he still has to make, that character still has to make those decisions. You he could just go through the program as soon as the program’s over, just turn back to what he was doing before and go back to his old life, basically.
Travis (14:50.004)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (14:56.949)
But it’s his choices that lead him through everything else. And so it’s really just the heart behind all of the books in this series and behind most of everything I write.
Travis (15:07.54)
Choices and next steps and different paths. Well, staying with Girl Lost, it’s a personal story to you. How did your own experiences in foster care influence the way you’ve approached themes of belonging and family in that book?
Kate Angelo (15:24.429)
So you guys probably hear this a lot or it’s talked about a lot on the podcast is that family is more than blood in a lot of ways. It doesn’t necessarily replace that. I don’t think there’s always still a drive to know your biological family and maybe even be somewhat proud of where you came from, even if you’re not necessarily proud of the choices and behaviors. So for me, is, I guess it’s…
a little bit of me emotionally in these books. for example, my biological mother, she never physically abused me, but she was very neglectful and she was an alcoholic. And so I ended up becoming what’s called parentified, which some people who don’t know what that means just means that I was the parent and I took care of all of my siblings or most of my siblings.
And so, and that took on a whole role and ended up being one of the reasons why I ended up in foster care because I was supporting a family financially and even though I was a teenager and not really even old enough to have a job and, you know, and trying to parent and you don’t have any ideas how to parent. So that kind of comes into play as why the character
does what she does. the same thing with the hero Corbin in this book is he kind of tortures himself with alcohol. He will pour it and not drink it because he wants to prove that he’s in control. Like I can just resist temptation. And he learns maybe he’s not as in control as he thinks he is. so there’s a lot of deep layers there that are things that I think that
Travis (17:03.988)
Hmm.
Kate Angelo (17:18.689)
some foster kids and even I was like, you know, I’m never going to be like my brothers and sisters. I’m never going to do this. I’m never going to do that. But where does that strength really come from whenever you’re super duper weak and whenever you’re really emotionally challenged? And so that’s kind of the what they kind of learn throughout this, you know, is it the the people around them, their own strength, where are they going to draw strength from?
Courtney (17:28.046)
think really interesting that you’re really able to make that happen. So that’s kind of the…
Courtney (17:43.566)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (17:44.596)
Man, that’s so fascinating. I’m a writer, I mean, not to your level at all, but like, so I’ve done a lot of, you know, kind of reading on things like creativity, where writing and inspiration comes from and kind of the process. And it’s really different. It’s really fascinating kind of as you overlay your creative writing process with your own story and how interwoven and complex and the characters are and kind of some of that stuff. There’s a great line by a writer that said, words are a lens to focus the mind.
Courtney (17:49.054)
I’ve done a lot of…
Travis (18:14.408)
I’m just kind of curious too, like how much in your writing is you’re kind of exploring these ideas and narrative? Is that kind of taking you back in time, you know, to kind of yourself and kind of putting yourself even in these fictional places and, know, where you kind of show up even in your writing journey?
Kate Angelo (18:29.941)
Yeah, you know, with fiction authors, you’ll probably hear us say like, you know, that we’re not really in control of our characters as much as we’d like to think. And so sometimes it just kind of it comes out. It’s you know, there’s a scene in there where they’re really kind of connecting emotionally for the first time after, you know, the after their childhood romance, and then she runs away and then they’re they’re working together. So they have the case of that they’re they’re working together. But then they finally have a moment.
Courtney (18:35.502)
characters as much as we’d to see.
Travis (18:36.628)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (19:00.013)
And it’s in that moment that I’m like, he’s trying to kind of apologize without making any excuse, but also saying, I really want you to know me. it’s through that that I’m like, that is a lot of me in there too, that it’s not that I want you to like, you know what, she was in foster care, so just let her snap at you or whatever, her run away when she’s mad or something.
Travis (19:15.892)
Yeah.
Kate Angelo (19:28.845)
It’s more of the empathy that goes along with that. I want you to feel what the character’s feeling in that moment and maybe experience what they felt. And I don’t really know that until I’m writing it. And sometimes it makes me all teary-eyed and then, and I’m like, you know, I’m writing fictional things about fictional people, but it clearly it’s coming from a, you know, a not fictional place.
Travis (19:32.862)
Hmm hmm. Yeah
Travis (19:41.224)
Wow.
Travis (19:50.664)
Wow, yeah, thanks for sharing that. That’s so fascinating.
Courtney (19:51.839)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we do, we get some pushback at America’s Goods Belong sometimes because we do get voices, know, foster parent voices and, you know, not all the voice at the table. We try to bring all the voices. And sometimes people will say like, you should only focus on the voice of the former foster youth because they’re the ones and we get where they’re coming from. Like we need to understand that I can’t be a good foster parent without understanding or I can’t fully understand by having empathy for what they’re going through it and maybe having some understanding of where it might be coming from.
Kate Angelo (20:09.613)
Thank
Courtney (20:21.39)
But you know, there is like that push and pull like we really want to have everybody at the table But I do agree like we really should be listening to the experiences of those who have gone through this because they have so much to teach us and Help us to learn and you know in helping them the kids through the situations that they’re going through in our homes So yeah, just want to share that because I think that it brings a lot of insight into maybe some of the frustration Some people have when when we do share other people’s voices. That’s like no, we’re not saying we’re not listening to you We agree we need to listen to you. But yeah
Kate Angelo (20:46.968)
Yeah. Well, if I can piggyback on that a little bit, I don’t know if you guys have seen the movie. It’s The Sound of Hope and I think it’s, you know, the possum trot story. And my husband and I, you know, we’ve been married almost 20 years and we went to see it at an early screening. And so he watched there’s a scene in there where one of their foster children is calling 911 and there’s like, you know, the murder happening in the other room. I’m going to get all choked up.
Courtney (20:54.796)
Yes.
Travis (20:54.836)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (21:15.701)
even talking about it. And for him to visually see that, and then like, that’s what my wife went through. I mean, that was like, he that was his eye opening empathy to other children. And, you know, and we and we kind of approached foster care from from a different angle, which is probably a whole nother podcast, you know, whereas I see that, you know, there’s children who are still living with their biological parents who could probably benefit from
Travis (21:20.808)
Wow.
Wow.
Travis (21:27.54)
Wow.
Kate Angelo (21:44.129)
from foster care situations. And then there’s some people who, know, that they don’t need to be in foster care and they’re just, they’re just prolonging this, you know, we, we, we know both sides of it, but, but there’s a lot of people who, you know, they’ve experienced these things up to a point and it’s, and they may live with that their whole entire life. And foster care is not going to make one bit of difference when you witness or you’re in that trauma. And, know,
Travis (21:45.972)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (22:11.563)
We see that with soldiers and people who come out of, you know, survivors guild and all kinds of different things. And foster care is not what fixes that. It’s not the solution to anything. It’s just the opening to launch the solution, I guess is my point.
Travis (22:22.6)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (22:25.614)
and
Courtney (22:31.542)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so being in foster care and now being on the other side, we know is statistically and sadly, a lot of times kids that, know, parents, they’re in foster care, their mom was in foster care, so grandparents are in foster care, whether that’s generational or just generational trauma as a whole. So people could have looked at you and been like, I’m sure people said to you, you’re gonna end up just like your mom, you know, and how did you break out of that generational cycle? Who and what do you credit for that?
Travis (22:31.848)
Great line.
Kate Angelo (23:00.045)
So one interesting thing, and I think this is a little bit of where like girl loss kind of gets its seed is, my mom was buying and selling exotic animals and there was a woman who came over, her name is Margie, and I wish I could, I knew her, I knew her family, or I knew her last, even her last name, but she came over and she was selling these exotic birds to my mom, so we called her Margie the bird lady, and she saw like,
just a snapshot of what our house looked like or where we lived. like, you know, I can’t even imagine what she was seeing from her from her eyes. And all she said was, you know, hey, could I take the girls to my church like on a Wednesday? And my mom was like, yeah, you know, got like, you know, six kids running around here, take some of them, you know, because that happens, you know. And so she took us to church. And and I and it’s not like I had some big lightning bolt moment. And I was like, I’m to be a Christian.
Travis (23:48.936)
Hahaha
Kate Angelo (23:58.509)
It was really just like the care of one person who did something that she didn’t have to do and didn’t need to do. And she wasn’t even like trying to evangelize us or anything. But what she did was she planted the seed of what you could have, what normal does look like. She planted the seeds of, like you were just saying, you can choose. Your circumstances might not be great.
you might not have parents who are gonna buy you a car or even dinner tonight, and you might not have somebody who helps you get into college or helps you find a job or any of those things. You might not have that in your life, but there’s someone out there who, if you lean into them, would willingly mentor you and help you. And so I called them spiritual parents, so I feel like I have just been surrounded by what I call
Travis (24:50.676)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (24:53.759)
Spiritual parents and not all of them are Christians, know They’re just the the parents that I have that aged I aged out of the system in their home That they were the story is kind of interesting because they were not looking to foster They were not licensed to foster what happened was My best friend at the time who I call my sister now She drove me over to meet my caseworker and my caseworker said hey your foster family is you know, you have to move
You’re we don’t have any place for you here in our small town So you’re gonna be moved to a girl’s home and my my sister looked at my caseworker and said well You know like I’m a I’m an only child. We have an extra bedroom Can she just live with us and he’s like, sure, know because he’s just trying to a placement right and And I was I think maybe a sophomore in high school or something at the time and so that it would have been just another disruption another you know moving and
Courtney (25:38.798)
Yeah.
Travis (25:38.964)
haha
Kate Angelo (25:51.307)
And the other thing that’s really probably the most important part of that is that, my family, I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. We moved to Missouri, everything imploded. I went into foster care in Missouri and my mom ended up moving back to Texas with my younger brother and sister. So I was abandoned in another state with no family, nobody to take care of me, nobody to walk me through the foster. I didn’t even have visits or phone calls, nothing. I was just on my own.
Courtney (26:12.046)
Thank
Travis (26:12.083)
Wow.
Kate Angelo (26:20.523)
and I had a foster home and then I was being told your foster home is losing its license. And so I was like, okay, now what? And for my, again, somebody who’s there who steps up and says, I’ll give up this other bedroom and this comfortable, you know, only child life to share it with you. And I was like, well, we should probably ask your parents first, you know, make sure they’re okay with me coming to live there.
Travis (26:26.641)
Hmm.
Courtney (26:29.39)
Hmm.
Travis (26:44.849)
huh.
Kate Angelo (26:48.049)
And they were like, absolutely. And it was like from day one that they just were like, they treated me like their daughter. And it wasn’t, they weren’t ready, they weren’t looking, they weren’t, they just were the kind of people who were willing to open their home. And so again, spiritual parents who change your whole, the whole trajectory of your life, somebody who shows up.
Travis (27:08.628)
Hmm.
Courtney (27:10.606)
Tie that into, I heard you say before we started recording, we were kind of talking about what these kids need most. You know, as they get into those upper ages of high school, as they age out of care, what is something that they really need that is maybe lacking and maybe what are you and your husband doing to help that?
Kate Angelo (27:28.469)
Yeah, I love the last question that you guys usually ask on the podcast is, you know, what do they, what do kids need the most? Because there’s a lot and we were talking about, you know, empathy and they need life skills and they need resources and they need people. But above all else, I feel that they need relationship skills. That that’s the one thing that if you are, if you are a person who ended up in foster care,
Travis (27:32.98)
haha
Kate Angelo (27:54.943)
you are wildly lacking relationship skills, whatever has been demonstrated to you up to that point. And then even in foster care, the parents sometimes, they’re like, well, you’re only gonna be here for a time. So it’s not the same. You’re learning some relationship skills, it’s at arm’s length. And so what do I learn from that is people are gonna come in and out of my life and I should always keep them at arm’s length is what you’ll.
you’ll end up teaching them accidentally. So my husband and I, when we met, we both said, we wanted people to understand pain that we’ve both gone through and we don’t want them to go through it or we wanna help them through it. And so we founded our nonprofit that really helps singles and married couples go from hoping to have a great relationship to actively building one through this practical education and skills, resources.
And then we also do date night events. But the goal is to help them enjoy a fulfilling lifelong marriage that leads to financial security and personal growth and thriving families and above all else, a legacy that they can be proud of. And so our nonprofit is it’s called Vanguard Marriage and Family Advocates, the word Vanguard to protect marriages and families. And it’s really to teach relationship skills to people and
I don’t, you don’t have to be in foster care to have grown up with no relationship skills. You know, we, everybody should know that, right? So, so I do weave a little bit of that into, into my books as well. You know, the, the type of relationship dynamics and things like that. But I really do think that that’s the number one thing teaching skills on how to communicate and how to share your feelings in a safe place and
Courtney (29:26.114)
Thank
Travis (29:28.852)
Ha
Kate Angelo (29:50.605)
things that I never learned even in foster care. So, yeah.
Travis (29:54.1)
Yeah. Very needed, very inspiring. That’s a gap and that’s a strong one to identify and pour into. And I love that you and your husband, what you’re doing, kind of creatively and through kind of maybe some past wounds, but using that, that as a place to inspire and help equip others. That’s very cool.
Courtney (29:56.955)
Yes. Yeah.
Courtney (30:15.79)
And probably the hardest thing, right? If you think about the things you were listing, like buying somebody a car, right? I can check that off my box pretty easily. I can go help them get, you know, the monetary things. Like that’s an easy way for people to get involved. And we love when people do that, but really what’s needed most, kind what you’re talking about is mentors, people to wrap around kids and care, kids aging out of care, even not people in care, right? But for people to have every individual to have somebody that they feel like this person cares and this person is going to help me walk through life, you know, go through the hard things, celebrate the…
Kate Angelo (30:22.093)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (30:45.848)
great things, what we all need. But like I said, that takes more time. That takes more.
Kate Angelo (30:50.049)
Yeah, there’s a lot of things that you can hire somebody to do. Like you can hire somebody to teach your kid how to drive. And so, so some kids in foster care, they just see you as hired to be my parent. And that doesn’t necessarily equate to healthy relationship skills. Whereas if we were able to sit down and say, okay, Courtney, like, you know, this is, this is how you and I would have a conversation and how I would tell you what you just did hurt me. And you don’t.
Travis (31:01.012)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (31:18.413)
have to react, you don’t have to, and because this is what is hard for even me as an adult is that I want to defend, I want to withdraw, I want to do, know, everything that I witnessed in my past that says like, go into your protective place, because no one has ever said, you know what, it’s okay for you to have hurt somebody’s feelings and for them to say, you hurt my feelings.
and I didn’t like your behavior. And for you to go, know, let me have some empathy with that. And empathy, they found is measurable. So my husband talks a lot about this is that, you know, you have your IQ, but you also have your EQ, and you can measure your EQ. And I think that that is something that probably as foster parents, we should look at, you know, this child is 16 years old, but emotionally is eight years old.
Courtney (32:01.101)
Mm.
Kate Angelo (32:13.835)
and we need to look at that. Can we get them from eight to 16 in the year that they’re in our house or the two years that they’re in our house?
Travis (32:21.746)
Yeah, that’s really good. And I know I’ve done like kind of looking to leadership studies and things like that. And I think the biggest predictor of a successful, whether it’s a business or a thing there is emotionally key. It’s way more than like, like just academic talent and all that stuff. It’s a huge underrated thing. So very cool. well bouncing back, this is, I love this podcast episode because we’re kind of going back and forth between you and your interweaving this throughout everything, but like,
Courtney (32:23.064)
Yeah.
Courtney (32:38.605)
Hmm.
Travis (32:48.548)
of your own life and then back to your writing. So going back to your writing and your being an author, what do you hope readers who have experienced foster care, adoption or family separation might take away from Luna’s story?
Kate Angelo (33:03.533)
So I think that one of the biggest thing is that it’s always okay to come back. There’s always room to come back to redeem whether you’re the one who left and made a huge mistake or whether you were hurt by the other people. It’s always okay to come back and there should be a place of grace. There might not always be a place of grace and redemption and things like that.
but it’s definitely available. And so I guess my point of that is that, you know, I was abandoned by my biological family, but I went back and I connected with them. But then when I realized it’s still kind of toxic, I could draw a boundary there. And so that’s kind of one of the things that the book talks about is it’s okay to go back. It’s okay for people to be happy. It’s okay for people to be…
angry with you, people are going to accept you differently. And but it but it’s not up to them how you behave, you choose your own behaviors. And so the biggest message overall, though, is really just that the parable and it’s in the front of the book so can read it if you’ve never read it before. And I don’t begrudge anybody, you know, in my my mid 20s, you know, and I tell the story the first time I went to church and the pastor was like,
He was preaching a sermon and then he mentioned Joseph in the Bible. And he’s like, well, everybody knows the story of Joseph, so I’m just going to go on. And meanwhile, I’m looking in the Bible for the book of Joseph to try to hurry up and learn the story so that I can figure out what he’s talking about, which there is no book of Joseph in the Bible. so I don’t begrudge anybody who doesn’t know the parable of the lost sheep in this book is just really about leaving the 99 to go find the one lost sheep.
Courtney (34:41.262)
.
Kate Angelo (34:59.093)
And so, so the very end of the book has that in there of, you know, how far will each person go to save one lost person, whether it’s to save them spiritually, to save them physically, to save their, know, save their life, what, how far will you go to save one person? And that’s really what I want people to think about whenever they leave reading this book.
Courtney (35:25.646)
So what genre would you say this book is?
Kate Angelo (35:30.465)
So it’s romantic suspense with a thriller edge. So some danger, but mostly it’s about the relationships of them walking through this case and then, and the plot is very interesting and unfolds and is very plot twisty. So as soon as you think you know what’s happening, it kind of unfolds into something else. if you’re just into something that’ll stick with you for a really long time, then I think you’ll really enjoy it.
Courtney (35:57.903)
Okay. So how did you balance that writing of this authentic, your emotional trauma, the things you’ve gone through with this fast paced demand of a thriller like that?
Travis (35:58.068)
Ha
Kate Angelo (36:07.809)
man, that’s really the hard part. That’s where I can lean heavily into my editors and the team behind me on this, you know, is that, the pacing okay? And then I still second-guessed myself, like, you know, they’re like ready to publish it. And I’m like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, is this okay? And they’re like, no, no, it’s great. We loved it. You know, so really trying to balance, to try to keep the emotional suspense, which is really hard. And a romantic suspense, you pretty much know that by the end, the couple will end up together. That’s the payoff that everyone’s looking for.
Travis (36:22.161)
Ahaha
Kate Angelo (36:37.197)
But it’s how much did they grow in that and how much did they learn from that? And my favorite thing is always an epilogue in a book, which I know some people skip it and I’m like, why would you skip an epilogue? That’s like the happily ever after you get to see them, the story’s continuing. So I really try to balance the suspense of the story with the character suspense with their character arc where we can see them growing and you can kind of see them.
Travis (36:48.446)
No, no.
Courtney (36:48.994)
Yeah
Kate Angelo (37:06.829)
taking a step and they’re like, I’m going to justify this step that I’m taking, but really that’s just because they do want to get closer to that person. They’re just justifying it in their, within their own mind. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that before, but. For sure.
Courtney (37:20.514)
Yeah, all the time, too much.
Travis (37:22.004)
All the time.
Courtney (37:27.191)
Yeah.
Travis (37:27.656)
Well, how can readers find you and connect with you?
Kate Angelo (37:30.775)
So the best way to find me is just to go to my website. It is KateAngelo.com and you can learn a lot about Girl Lost there. And if you’re interested, if you’re just like so eager and you don’t have your copy yet, you can at least get the deleted scene, which is something that I wrote ahead of time. But then I was like, this doesn’t really move the plot forward. And it leaves a lot of questions, but it’s a good example of my writing. But also you get to…
see who Luna was before you even open the book. And so that’s a really great thing. And then you can see if you want to purchase it, it’s going to be there. And then you’ll get to see what’s coming next. And again, if you subscribe, you get to see that picture of me as a kid with a lion, like in a house. Right? Right? For sure.
Courtney (38:14.22)
Yeah, totally worth it.
Travis (38:14.9)
That alone is worth it all.
Courtney (38:19.47)
Oh, yeah, your story is very inspiring and very fun. I mean, it’s hard, right? It’s hard, but it’s also like, the fun are woven into it. And yeah, just love how God has used your story to redeem it and to make you this woman you are today that’s able to share your story with such grace and yet compassion for those who are experiencing or have experienced it.
Travis (38:24.628)
Hmm.
Kate Angelo (38:44.555)
Yeah, thank you so much. mean, I think that when I was in foster care, I would never have thought I could be where I’m at right now and could never even picture this is a normal, you know. So just I just say continue pushing into everything that you care about and using your passion to fuel your future and and to help take care of other people.
Travis (39:09.304)
I love that you said that because interviewing a former foster youth who became a naval officer told me one time, always has stuck with me, that one of his biggest laments looking back and one of the biggest issues of being in foster care for him was the loss of being able to dream. I think just your story and others like you that have went on to be able to dream and get out of that fog or whatever and get on and just have it.
Courtney (39:27.406)
Hmm.
Travis (39:39.07)
incredibly redemptive story and doing amazing things in the world is really amazing.
Kate Angelo (39:45.867)
Yeah, you know, my husband has recently started doing a little bit of work in the prison system. And the prisons I know are full of people who either should be and have gone to foster care or that they were, you know, maybe that they were a part of the foster care system. And a lot of the things that they have in common, you know, most of us know the statistics is that they have no father.
Travis (39:57.96)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Angelo (40:11.077)
And so I know that it’s great whenever you have some of those single foster dads on here that on your podcast, because it’s it’s the the father really is super important in the home. And there’s a lot of fear for them bringing a child into their home because they’re worried that they won’t have enough time to do all the things like you just said, to help them dream bigger, to take a step in the right direction.
And so I think it’s really important for men to lead out in this area where they need to understand that if you have a child in your home for a weekend or you have your child for four or five years and it’s the most frustrating time of your life, that you’re still, it’s, know, the thing that I’ve learned from having our, I’ll kind of backtrack here a little bit is having a daughter that we adopted out of foster care. She was,
She went in right before her fifth birthday. She was in nine homes before she came to us and we adopted her. So she was 10, almost 11, I think, when we adopted her. And so her whole life was just foster care. That’s what she knew was foster care. to watch her, she was set up with a job and bank account and all the things that you really, really need. And you’re just like,
but you’re taking some steps that we just think aren’t the right steps. God really told me, he said, who’s writing her story here, me or you? And so I love that because I’m an author, first of all, and he’s like, let me put you in your place. Who’s really writing these stories? You don’t know that every decision that I made, somebody else was sitting back going, they’re making a wrong choice, but those choices lead you to the right place. And again, you have a chance.
Courtney (41:46.062)
Hmm.
Travis (41:49.278)
haha haha
Kate Angelo (42:05.003)
to redeem it on your, know, to get that redemption and to change at any point in your life, you can turn around and say, I’m going to stop drinking and it’s going to be a challenge, but I’m going to do it or I’m going to stop doing drugs or I’m going to, you know, stop this. I’m going to stop scrolling TikTok and I’m going to like actually go become an entrepreneur instead of just watching videos about it. I’m going to do these things because it’s meaningful for only for me. Just
Travis (42:07.486)
Yeah.
Travis (42:12.254)
Hmm. Yep.
Travis (42:24.67)
Yeah.
Kate Angelo (42:33.847)
for me, just to, for me to do something great with this one life that I have. And so that’s really one of the key takeaways for me is just that we need to, we need to keep dreaming. Like you were just saying, keep dreaming and then, and it’s up to you. Nobody’s going to do it for you. So you may as well just take steps and do it yourself.
Travis (42:47.272)
Hmm, yeah.
Travis (42:55.604)
Oh man, let’s go. I love that.
Courtney (42:57.808)
Yeah. I know you kind of already answered this, but I want you to answer it again, wrap it up into a sentence or two. How would you finish the sentence, Kate? What kids in foster care really need is.
Kate Angelo (43:10.411)
I think they need empathy, above all else, they need those relationship skills so that they can learn how to navigate this very tough world. You are only in care for any, like the first 10 % of your life. So they need these skills that are gonna carry them for the rest of their life and help guide them making decisions in the future.
Courtney (43:35.022)
Well, thank you for joining us today. I loved this conversation. I’m super excited to read your book and I hope that our listeners will pick it up as well. you know, as you expressed, I mean, we’re reading fiction, but we’re also reading into the lens of somebody who has walked some hard things. And so think we can remember that as we read it as foster parents, know, taking some takeaways of how can I take this story or what you’ve shared today and implement it for good to be a good relationship.
maker with the kids in our care. So thanks for joining us.
Kate Angelo (44:06.273)
Yeah. Thank you guys so much for having me and thank you for even doing this podcast. It’s amazing.
Travis (44:12.062)
Thanks so much.
Courtney (44:13.165)
Yes.
