Elise Hart Kipness on Turning Sports Reporting Into Fictional Thrillers and the TV Adaptation of “Lights Out”
“Kate stands up for herself in a way I never did. It’s a tough industry, sports reporting and TV reporting in general, and at the time I was in it, I really felt like I was lucky just to be in the game. So I didn’t speak up about slights or the way I was treated as a woman in a predominantly male world… Kate, on the other hand, calls it out. She stands up for herself. I didn’t back then. So it’s very cathartic to write this character and have her be strong in situations where I was timid.”
I had the pleasure of talking again with Elise Hart Kipness. Elise, a former national television sports reporter, has emerged as a bestselling author of the Kate Green thriller series, a suspense franchise rooted in her years on the frontlines of live sports broadcasting. Her transition from covering events such as the Olympics, NBA Championships, and the U.S. Open to writing high-stakes fiction has earned her industry acclaim and an expanding readership.
The Kate Green novels, which draw directly from Kipness’s experience in the press pits of major sports arenas, have found both critical and commercial success. The series has been named a Top 10 Book of the Year by Men’s Journal, a “Must-Read” by Woman’s Day, a featured beach read by Scripps News, and a recommended thriller by News 12 Connecticut. It has also been spotlighted in the Fresh Fiction Subscription Box. Notably, the first novel in the series, Lights Out, was optioned for television by Universal Television in partnership with Mary J. Blige’s Blue Butterfly production company. The show is currently in development, with producers Deborah Martin Chase and Liz Friedlander attached to the project.
Kipness’s central character, Kate Green, mirrors much of her creator’s professional background, chronicling the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated media environment. Like Kipness, Green is portrayed as a sports journalist navigating the intensity of live reporting, often under physical and social pressure. Standing at five feet tall, Kipness has recalled interviewing towering NBA athletes while standing on a milk crate, one of many practical accommodations she made in order to do her job effectively in a competitive industry.
Before turning to fiction, Kipness held on-air positions at Fox Sports Network, WNBC-TV in New York, News 12 Long Island, and the Associated Press. Her journalism career placed her at the center of some of the world’s most-watched sporting events. But along with the access came barriers. In recounting her experiences, she has spoken publicly about being undermined and sidelined, including an incident at the U.S. Open golf tournament where a media officer appeared to deny her access in favor of lesser-known outlets. Though she managed to secure the interview with champion Payne Stewart by directly appealing to him, Kipness has reflected on the incident as emblematic of the systemic issues facing women in sports media at the time.
The character of Kate Green has become a kind of creative proxy, allowing Kipness to revisit those moments with the benefit of hindsight and agency. She has said that writing Green is cathartic, giving her the opportunity to voice responses she may have silenced in her own career. Green is, according to Kipness, a bolder, more confrontational version of herself, quick to call out misconduct and push back against institutional barriers.
A graduate of Brown University, Kipness now teaches at the Westport Writers’ Workshop, where she specializes in thriller and mystery writing. She is also a board member of the Friends of Key West Library and the founding president of the Connecticut chapter of Sisters in Crime, an organization that supports female crime writers. Her work as a mentor and teacher reflects her emphasis on the craft of writing, particularly her belief in the importance of plot, structure, and revision. In interviews, Kipness has emphasized the need for writers to remain open to critique and to resist becoming overly attached to early drafts.
Kipness’s third novel, Close Call, is scheduled for release in August and takes place against the backdrop of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The story continues Green’s arc as she investigates the kidnapping of one tennis star while profiling another. The novel, like its predecessors, focuses on media ethics, personal trauma, and gender dynamics, as well as the adrenaline and uncertainty of live sports coverage.
While the series is fictional, Kipness has maintained a commitment to exploring real-world issues through her work. Dangerous Play, the second book in the series, opens with a crisis sparked by misinformation on social media, an echo of the author’s concerns about the deterioration of journalistic standards and fact-checking in the digital age. Drawing from her own background in television news, she has warned against the risks of equating unverified content with credible reporting.
Today, Kipness splits her time between Stamford, Connecticut, and Key West, Florida, where she lives with her husband and their three labradoodles. The couple has two college-aged sons. When not writing, Kipness is an avid reader and consumer of thrillers, and has confessed to a particular fondness for coffee ice cream.
Though her fiction is infused with suspense and often centers on dramatic crises, Kipness’s broader project appears rooted in an attempt to reconcile her past experiences in journalism with contemporary questions about truth, power, and voice, particularly for women in high-pressure professions. As the Kate Green series expands and moves toward the screen, it carries with it the imprint of its author’s lived experience and an ongoing engagement with the evolving role of women in media and storytelling.
Yitzi: Elise it’s so good to see you again. Since we last spoke, please share with us any exciting new stories or announcements that have developed with your writing.
Elise: I have a big announcement, actually, and it was just made public, so I’m really excited to share it with you, one of the first people. Lights Out has been optioned by Universal Television and Mary J. Blige’s Blue Butterfly Studios, with some incredibly strong women attached. Deborah Martin Chase is the executive producer, and Liz Friedlander is also on board as executive producer and director. I can’t even find the words to express how excited and honored I am to be connecting with these people, these studios, these powerful women who have such a strong track record of telling stories about strong women. Queen Latifah has been starring in Deborah Martin Chase’s The Equalizer for so many years, and I keep pinching myself because I couldn’t think of a better home for Kate Green. I feel honored and lucky.
Yitzi: Do you know who is going to play the lead?
Elise: We don’t know yet. We’re not there yet. But they have such an amazing track record of picking incredible casts and strong women, so I’m eagerly awaiting what they decide.
Yitzi: When you wrote the character, in your mind, which actor or actress does she most look like?
Elise: I’ve been thinking about it, what’s my dream cast? I do have some thoughts, and they’re kind of all over the board because I can see her going in so many different directions. Alexis Bledel is someone who’s worked with Deborah Martin Chase. I was obsessed with Gilmore Girls, and she’s in The Handmaid’s Tale, all of that. But I also love Grace Byers, I think I’m pronouncing that right, who’s amazing and was in the show Harlem, which I’m also obsessed with. So I guess those two are in my mind. Sophia Bush, is another possibility. Definitely a strong, powerful woman.
Yitzi: You mentioned in the past that Kate Green shares your professional DNA but is bolder. In what way does she embody boldness, and does she make choices that you didn’t take?
Elise: Yeah, that’s such a good question. I would say that Kate stands up for herself in a way I never did. It’s a tough industry, sports reporting and TV reporting in general, and at the time I was in it, I really felt like I was lucky just to be in the game. So I didn’t speak up about slights or the way I was treated as a woman in a predominantly male world. I didn’t push back when people dismissed me.
When I was covering the US Open for golf, which is kind of funny because my next book is about the US Open for tennis, there was a public relations officer who had promised that the winner of the tournament would speak to us. Usually the top three sports stations automatically get the first interviews — Fox Sports Network, CNNSI, and ESPN. And this wasn’t a hard-hitting story. It was just a “How do you feel? You won the US Open” kind of thing. There was no reason not to want that publicity.
The publicist was really nasty to me all week but kept promising I’d get the interview. Then Payne Stewart won, and the PR guy kept bringing him to all these tiny stations, stations no one had ever heard of, and didn’t give me the interview. I remember my camera operator saying, “He’s pulling Payne Stewart down the hallway into the locker room, and we’re not allowed in there. You’re not getting the interview. Do something.”
So I screamed after Payne, “Please do the interview!” In my head I’m thinking, I will be fired if I don’t get this. Payne stopped the guy, who had his arm on him and was pulling him away from me, and said, “No, I want to do this interview.”
That moment was so meaningful, Payne did something really kind. But the PR guy? He was clearly trying to spite me. He didn’t know me, and I was the only woman there. It took me years to process that. At the time, I just felt grateful. I thought, thank God, I got the interview, now I can sleep at night. But really, I should’ve raised hell. The way he treated me all week was inappropriate.But I just wanted to get through it and get the story. I felt like it was on me to make that happen. Kate, on the other hand, calls it out. She stands up for herself. I didn’t back then. So it’s very cathartic to write this character and have her be strong in situations where I was timid.
Yitzi: That’s great. What would you say that story teaches you, or teaches the world, about allyship in a male-dominated space?
Elise: I think what it teaches you is that things aren’t black and white. I was in a male-dominated world, but there were many men who treated me with respect and kindness, like Payne Stewart, who did the right thing. It’s about those few bad apples that really hurt everything. But people are people, right? There are good ones and bad ones.
I’m very appreciative of everyone who was professional. It shouldn’t even be about kindness, it’s about being professional, treating others with respect, and doing what you’re supposed to do in a job. And then there were people who didn’t do that.
There were also situations that weren’t as serious, where I had to play the game a little. Like Rick Mahorn, who was known for playing for the Detroit Pistons. Part of the “Bad Boys.” By the time I was covering him, he was older, playing for the Sixers, mostly riding the bench. I was covering the playoffs, and he gave me a hard time, but more in a razzing, trash-talking way.
I remember coming home to my husband and saying, “He was mean to me.” And my husband said, “He’s an old man, basketball-wise. Call him out and see what happens.” So the next day, I was like, “Who are you talking to, old man?” And this is Rick Mahorn, he’s massive, and I’m tiny, like 5 feet. But he respected it. He was like, “All right, all right, you go.”
That was more playful, even though it didn’t feel like it at first. The other situation, though, was serious. That was someone really trying to sabotage me.
Yitzi: Is there a real-life reporter you think is most similar to Kate? I know she’s based on you, but is there someone reporting now who reminds you of her?
Elise: You know, I don’t think I can answer that. In my brain, Kate is like the cooler version of me, the taller, cooler version of me. So I can’t think of another reporter I’d put in that spot. I can think of actors or actresses, but no, I’m keeping it to myself. And honestly, I don’t know if anyone would want me to put that on them, because Kate has her demons too.
Yitzi: What kind of demons does she have?
Elise: Well, Kate has trust issues. She was abandoned by her biological father, and then in the first book, he turns out to be the NYPD detective assigned to her case. So they have to navigate that complicated dynamic. Does she trust him? Does she think he’s using her? Is there any chance to repair that relationship?
There’s also the question of whether there’s more to his leaving than she originally thought. That mystery kind of simmers in the background across all three books. So yeah, she has some issues around that.
Yitzi: You mentioned last time that you would stand on milk crates to talk to the players, and that you were often the only woman in the locker room. What has that taught you about power dynamics in male-dominated spaces and about being the only woman in the room?
Elise: There were usually about three of us, one from each TV station, and then so many men. It’s an interesting power dynamic. You want to get along. You want to be “one of the guys,” I guess you’d say. But at the same time, you’re different.
I think it’s about figuring out that balance. Again, I think Kate handled those situations better than I did. She didn’t overlook things. Like in Lights Out, when a basketball player came at her, she called it out. I would’ve ignored something like that just to get by, and I did ignore situations. I wish I hadn’t.
But I also don’t want to paint everyone as being difficult. The majority of people I covered were really great, nice, professional, and appreciative that I was doing my job just like they were doing theirs. It was just a few bad instances.
I was part of the generation that came just after the one that fought to get women allowed into locker rooms. That was a huge battle, and we were riding the momentum from that, even though it had been quite a few years. Those women paved the way for us.
Now, I think this new generation of reporters and women in the industry call things out right away, and I think that’s a good thing.
Yitzi: You’ve written a bestselling book that’s now being turned into a TV series, each of those accomplishments on their own is enormous. First of all, there are millions of authors, and very few become bestsellers. Based on your experience, can you give some advice on what it takes to make a book into a bestseller?
Elise: I think you need perseverance. It took me a really long time. And I also think you can’t be too precious with your words, your chapters, your work. You have to be willing to, for lack of a better phrase, kill your darlings. It’s true, because when you’re writing your first book, you’re learning how to write. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes.
I made so many. The first version of Lights Out, I wrote like a reporter. I told you the who, what, where, when, and why, and I didn’t create any suspense. So it just didn’t work. You have to be able to look critically at structure, because plot is really important. A lot of people write beautifully, but if their writing doesn’t serve the plot, then it needs to be edited.
You also have to listen to critique. If more than one person is coming back and saying something isn’t working, you need to be able to hear that.
I’m teaching writing now, that’s new since the last time we talked. I’m an instructor at the Westport Writing Workshop, and I’m teaching thriller and mystery writing, which I absolutely love. I have amazing students. But I think you need to become an expert in your craft. Take a lot of classes. Figure out what’s not working.
A big part of learning to write is also learning what not to include, what to skip so you don’t slow down the book or the pacing. So I’d just say: keep at it, and be very open to evaluating your work with a critical eye.
Yitzi: And what about the marketing? Did you do anything different that made it so successful? How did you promote it?
Elise: That’s a good question. I don’t know that I’m doing anything wildly different when it comes to promotion. And honestly, I don’t think that’s the primary reason a book becomes successful. You have to have a good book. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what you shout to the world.
Reviews are really important, on Amazon, on Goodreads. I was lucky. I have something like 11,000 five-star reviews on Amazon, which I’m really proud of.
But I think the marketing and publicity are like icing on the cake. Your cake has to be sound first.
Yitzi: That’s great. What about what’s needed to get your book picked up and turned into a film or a show? What’s that process like? Did you have to shop it around?
Elise: I just happen to have the most amazing literary manager in the world, Liza Fleissig of the Liza Royce Agency, and she handled all of that for me. I’m also represented in film by Deb Deuble Hill and Alec Frankel, and the team at IAG.
So my point is, you need to be lucky enough to get the right representation, and then they do the work and I get to reap the benefits.
Yitzi: That’s great advice, because a lot of times people just think it’s all up to them. You’re saying having a good literary agent is key.
Elise: Yeah, not all agents and representatives are created equally, and I know that from experience. I had a terrible agent when I was in television and went through some really bad experiences.
You want to find the right person. There are resources you can go to, like Publishers Marketplace, and QueryTracker. There are a lot of good representatives out there. But I really feel like I hit the jackpot with my manager, she’s just incredible. She’s the one who made all of this happen.
Yitzi: That’s great. What would you say are the lessons that society can take from the themes of Lights Out and Dangerous Play?
Elise: I’m so happy you asked that question because I do try to hit certain themes, and I have strong opinions about the media these days. While it’s not necessarily the flashiest element in my books, it’s a very important one to me.
In Dangerous Play, there’s a scene at the beginning that was inspired by an inaccurate tweet claiming there was a dangerous situation. That tweet sparks a stampede where people are injured and even die, and it turns out the information was false.
That kind of scenario really concerns me. It’s actually why I wrote the book. I feel like in the media these days, everything gets thrown out there and believed without verification. It all floats around with the same level of weight, whether it’s true or not.
When I started in news, when I worked at WNBC, my scripts were reviewed. It wasn’t a “he said, he said” situation. If someone said 1 + 1 = 2 and someone else said 1 + 1 = 3, we didn’t report the false claim, we verified facts. But I don’t feel like that happens anymore. That’s not a political statement. It’s a statement about how information is being shared today, and I’m genuinely worried about it. So I try to weave that concern into each of my books.
Yitzi: Tell us about Close Call, your new book coming out August 19. Why do we have to read this one? Elise: The book takes place at the US Open in Flushing Meadows, which was one of my favorite events to cover.
What I love about the US Open is the glamour, the celebrity, the electricity surrounding the sport. And tennis is different from my other books, which focused on team sports. With singles tennis, it’s just you. That creates a different level of intensity and pressure. You lose, you’re out, it’s one and done.
It’s a real pressure cooker in the book. Kate’s back at work, doing a big feature now that she’s an Emmy Award winner and host of her new weekly show. She’s profiling two players: an older, legendary tennis star about to retire, and a young up-and-comer. One of the women gets kidnapped, and the other gets pulled into it.
It’s a high-stakes, high-energy thriller, and it was really fun to write. It’s a little different from the others, and you get to see Kate in action, fully immersed in her reporting. Of course, the whole Liam saga comes back into play, and maybe, just maybe, Kate has a little romance happening too.
Yitzi: Great. Did you envision this also being part of the TV series?
Elise: I hope so. I hope all the books make it in. They’re all part of the Kate Green world, so it would be very cool.
Yitzi: Amazing. How can our readers continue to follow your work? How can they support you?
Elise: Oh, that’s so nice. I hope people run out and pre-order Close Call! I’d really urge them to support their favorite local bookstore, anything that supports independent bookstores is amazing. There are also links on my website, and I’m very active on social media, especially Instagram and Facebook.
Yitzi: Elise, it’s so good to talk to you again. Wishing you continued success, good health, and blessings. I’m so excited to see the series, really excited.
Elise: Yay, thank you! And thanks for interviewing me. I really appreciate it.
Yitzi: Oh, it’s a joy. It’s always good to talk with you.
Elise Hart Kipness on Turning Sports Reporting Into Fictional Thrillers and the TV Adaptation of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.