[Fixed]-What is the "proper" way to use django REST framework?

Should I setup an API and then have my other apps just interact with that?

You should create an API apps to put all your api in it.

Then I would create another app which will display views and forms for authors to actually create blogposts and which would send http requests to the api.

It depends, I used to do like what you said, but now I find out I don’t actually have to write any code in the views.py
For instance, You have a blog project.

Create two app, one is api, the other is blog.

Set your model in blog like this.

class Blog(models.Model):
    blog_title = models.CharField(max_length=30, blank=True)
    blog_content = models.CharField(max_length=140)

In api app, use django-rest-framework to create class BlogList(generics.ListCreateAPIView) and class BlogDetail(generics.RetrieveUpdateDestroyAPIView) or other APIView and Serializers to handle CRUD for your blog so your don’t have to write any code in blog’s views.py
I will recommend to use Ajax to handle the form instead of django build-in form api. Like CRUD the blogs, just send Ajax call to api/blogs(you handle it in your APIView, use django-rest-framework to handle which field is read only or any other porperty.), sign up or sign in just call api/users. django form api is complicated if you have lots of form and you can’t reuse it if you create a mobile app or use in other platform