Girl Underwater author
Kathleen Coggshall ’01
visits the mount for a book signing by: Eliza Ewing ’16 Kathleen Coggshall and Sister Kathleen Brabson, SSJ.
Kathleen Coggshall ’01 – better known by her pen name Claire Kells – is the author of the debut novel “Girl Underwater,” which was recently given the number one spot on Oprah Winfrey’s list of “Books to Read Over a Long (Holiday) Weekend.” She came to the Mount recently for a lecture and book signing. During the event, she sat down with The Campanile, the Mount’s student newspaper, for an interview.
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ffortless in navy blue scrubs and an impeccable dark brown bun, and clutching a copy of her novel (whose cover is emblazoned with her pen name, Claire Kells), Kathleen Coggshall ’01 graciously sat down with the Campanile’s four editors-in-chief to answer questions about her unusual career path and her adventure-romance novel, Girl Underwater. If navy blue scrubs seem like odd attire for a Princeton-graduated English major, Coggshall agrees. She herself admits that her career has been anything but orthodox. Mount’s 2001 Valedictorian, as well as a talented swimmer who set records in the 50 freestyle and 200 freestyle relay, Coggshall began as a pre-med major at Princeton University, but soon found herself at odds with the program’s intensity. She dropped out of the pre-med program and enrolled in the English department to pursue the love of writing she had developed at the Mount, where, she says, her teachers pushed her to be a better writer and encouraged her to find a style of writing and thinking that worked for her. Once graduated, however, Coggshall found herself drawn inexorably back to medicine. She took post-baccalaureate classes to fulfill the course requirements for medical school and was accepted to the University of California, San Diego, where she completed her M.D. and stayed for a few years as a researcher. Coggshall had been a standout swimmer at the Mount and swam all through high school, then retired before college. Drawn back to the water while studying in medical school, Coggshall began writing Girl Underwater, whose main character is a serious swimmer, after a shoulder injury forced her to stop swimming for a full 18 months.
Coggshall with her mother, Theresa Coggshall (left), and aunt, Mary Ann Bonner.
She had written other novels in medical school, but all of them, Coggshall laughs, were bad. As her medical education progressed, however, Coggshall began editing her own writing more harshly and trying to replicate the styles of other authors whom she admired. The result was her first publishable manuscript, though she teased that she might have another book in the works. Now a second-year dermatology resident, Coggshall says that she drew “quite a bit” from her personal life and experiences when composing Girl Underwater. Along with swimming, medicine played a big part in the “very personal place” she pulled from while writing. Coggshall explained that creating a personal novel was very important to her and that she incorporated elements from her own life, from swimming and her “medical bent” to her own values, friends, and family (who, Coggshall noted with a small grin, don’t know she made them characters) in order to create a work which spoke to her as well as to her readers. Even Coggshall’s pen name, Claire Kells, has a personal backstory. Coggshall chose “Claire” because she thought the name was pretty, but when her publisher advised her to choose a last name in the middle of the alphabet, since mid-alphabet letters are easier to find on a shelf, Coggshall immediately chose “Kells,” the name of the bar at which she and her fiancé first met. An accomplished individual, both as a doctor and a published novelist, Coggshall can back up the parting words she offered to the Campanile editors at the conclusion of her interview: “If you have a dream and you think it sounds unrealistic, it’s not,” she said. “You have to work hard for it.”
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