Kat Cho author page

Kat Cho biography

Kat Cho is a Korean American young adult author and a New York Times and international bestselling writer. Before becoming a published author, she worked in cancer research. She has also been a co-host of the Write or Die podcast, which features conversations with writers about their routes into publishing.

Cho made her YA debut with Wicked Fox, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 2019. Set in modern-day Seoul, the fantasy draws on Korean folklore through its central character Miyoung, an eighteen-year-old gumiho, or nine-tailed fox. The book was a Junior Library Guild selection. Its companion novel, Vicious Spirits, followed in 2020 and continued the Gumiho series with characters and supernatural elements introduced in the first book.

Her contemporary YA romance Once Upon a K-Prom, published by Disney-Hyperion in 2022, became an instant New York Times bestseller. It centres on Elena Soo, whose childhood friend Robbie returns as a member of a hugely successful K-pop group and asks her to prom. Cho returned to this fictional K-pop world with Wish Upon a K-Star, a companion novel about a K-pop idol and an aspiring K-drama actor.

Cho’s 2026 novel Gods & Comics, published by Nancy Paulsen Books, combines Korean mythology with contemporary fantasy. It follows Korean American teenager Grace Bak, whose webcomic based on stories told by her grandmother unexpectedly brings the Korean sun god Haemosu into the human world. Her next YA fantasy, House of Forgotten Souls, which draws on Korean shamanic traditions and the spirit world, is scheduled for publication by Bloomsbury in January 2027.