Catching up with Karina Manta about Her Book, Pride Month and More

Karina Manta is known by many things: retired ice dancer, author of a published young adult memoir, winning contestant on a British competitive reality show and budding figure skating coach.

Significantly, on Manta's author website, a line from her biography reads: "My skating partner, Joe Johnson, and I were collectively known for making the sport of ice dance a little bit gayer."

Fan Zone caught up with the retired skater during Pride Month to elaborate more on that statement and discuss how she made her own unique mark on the sport. Manta is believed to be the first out female figure skater on Team USA after she came out as bisexual in 2018, and Johnson is also out.

"We tried to embrace ourselves and the queer community in the sport and hopefully help build a little bit more of a queer community in the sport – which there has been for years," she said. "Even in the last five years, we've seen so much growth. When I came out, I didn't know other queer women in skating at all. Now I know a lot of queer women in skating! That's really special and that means a lot to me. I'm so grateful to have that community."

The queer skating community expands beyond the United States, Manta pointed out.

"We have Olympic champions that are both openly queer, which when I was a kid watching skating and was a figure skating fan growing up, that would've meant so much to me," she said, referencing 2022 Olympic ice dance gold medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France.

The sport is pushing to expand in other ways with the popularization of same-gender ice dancing teams, too. Manta is excited about where that can take the sport, but noted it likely will not lure her out of retirement.

"It's long overdue for skating," she said. "The beautiful thing about professional skating is there are no rules. I've been in this world where I've been able to explore this sport without the restrictions that competitive skating has … I'm excited for competitive skating to catch up to other aspects of the world."

Manta was quick to point out that she would feel like she was missing something on the ice if Johnson wasn't her partner, though. She suggested he could be the team's coach, if she ever did return to the ice in that capacity, as a way to keep their working partnership intact.

In fact, Manta and Johnson continue to skate on tour professionally to this day and coach skating lessons in New York City together. They remain close – so close that they moved in together.

"A lot of our decisions career-wise have been in tandem," Manta explained. "We both really had desired to have a home base, especially after not having that [while on British television]. I really love New York. We have really wanted to live in New York for a long time. I slightly pressured Joe into going; I wasn't doing it without him! It just made sense for us to come together."

New York City's thriving community of writers also attracted Manta, who said she has other writing projects in the works beyond her published young adult memoir On Top of Glass, which is being re-released in December in paperback form, she excitedly noted.

Manta's credentials in the sport – including a 10th place Skate America finish and four top-10 finishes at the U.S. Championships – don't often come up while she is coaching. But sometimes, Manta's students surprise her.

"I was doing some Learn to Skate classes over the winter," said Manta, who added that she particularly enjoys teaching those early beginners who are taking their first steps on the ice. "I had an adult class and after a few weeks, I come over and they're like, 'we started Googling you!' Then they showed up with my book which made me feel very shy and nervous.

"It's sweet that they liked skating and started researching and stuff," Manta added. "That's been a funny thing to meet people, and then all of a sudden they have my book, learning so many stories about embarrassing, middle-school-aged Karina."

Writing the book – which was published in Oct. 2021 – was a natural extension of the retirement process, she explained.

After retiring in 2019, "it was really a gift to explore my experiences right after leaving competitive skating – which is the time I feel like a lot of people go through this period of reflection anyway. It was cool to have a formal avenue to do that part."

And if the middle school-aged Karina in the book brings comfort to those who read it, so be it, said Manta.

"I think books belong to their readers to some extent," she said. "I hope it makes people reading it feel like they've got a friend in some of the experiences that they're going through. Being in skating can feel quite isolating. Being a girl can feel quite isolating. The biggest thing I can hope for is that people don't feel isolated."