kira
New Member
... and that pretty much exhausts my knowledge of Heinlein. Though I guess he's more usually considered a SF writer rather than a Fantasy writer.
Anyway. I am indeed a stranger, named Kira, and the strange land is that of fantasy, which isn't my usual roaming ground, but lately I've found myself exploring its territory more and more often.
To describe myself: first, as my original post here mentions, I'm the admin/co-founder of the EpiGuide, one of the first communities devoted to web-based fiction -- meaning fiction intended primarily if not solely for an online audience. The site was founded as a community/online magazine hybrid in 1997, and though to start with most of us focused on websoaps (a form of serialized work in narrative form inspired in part by daytime or nighttime continuing dramas), the community has expanded to cover all sorts of genres and formats, including serialized novels, ebooks, video webseries, podcasts, and so on. We're now mostly a forum and a terrific resource for promoting one's online work, hint hint.
Personally speaking, I'm the writer of About Schuyler Falls, a serialized drama that launched in 1996 and is still available online, albeit currently on hiatus. It tells the twisted tales of a deeply interconnected group of people in a small upstate New York town, where their vulnerabilities and dark sides are constantly putting them at risk for the worst possible situations their sadistic creator can devise.
ASF is my 'hobby' work. I'm also the author of four novels, two of which are actually fantasy-based (yay! finally on-topic!) and are a melange of genres, mixing mystery, historical romance, and fantasy. You can read about these time travel / werewolf romances here; they're kind of in a niche industry, a "personalized" novel where customers can insert the names and physical characteristics of the lead characters. (Basically they're sold as gift books.)
The two paranormals--really one is a YA adaptation of the adult romance--involve a young mystery-loving librarian unlocking the secret behind a mystical book, which sends her back in time to Victorian London right in the middle of a serial killer's murderous spree. (And no, it's not Jack the Ripper!) She's soon targeted by the killer, called "The Beast," and joins forces with a secretive but sexy detective, a real-life Sherlock Holmes, to catch the criminal. Unfortunately, the detective's own dark side could be at the center of the crimes, which just happen to occur only during the full moon. Though falling for the enigmatic detective, our heroine has an unhappy discovery ahead of her when she realizes the path of clues lead to her beloved's door.
Now that I've left this publisher and niche territory, I'm planning on rewriting this basic set-up into a series of novels, entirely original and non-personalized, so I can truly explore the Victorian world, its darker and more gruesome sides, and utilize more fantasy elements, including digging into the culture of a rural werewolf community in this 19th century setting -- and how time travel might create even more trouble for a tortured werewolf due to his connection to nature and the moon. They're still paranormal romance novels, so romance is a big factor in them, but my hope is to incorporate more history and more realistic depictions of what it would be like to exist as a werewolf. None of this bare-chested Alpha stuff for me! In my fantasy world, being a werewolf is an extremely painful, torturous existance--when you're not tormented by the moon you're being hunted by humans, or putting those you love in terrible danger.
So that's what I'm writing right now. My other work is as a freelance editor and book doctor (i.e. a developmental editor, helping the author shape his or her story from outline to final draft), and am currently working on an author's series of epic fantasy novels for the YA market.
Hmmm, what else? Oh, my first introduction to fantasy was the Pern series, and to this day if I could have invented one story "device" it would be the emotional/psychic link between Pern's dragons and their riders. I freakin' loved that. Though I lost interest in Pern after the first trilogy and the Menolly books. I shifted to Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, which again lost me after the first four or five entries. I do love LOTR and Harry Potter, particularly the latter's Remus Lupin (which is why I chose werewolves as my creature-of-choice in my romances). And I'm just beginning to explore the steampunk / gaslight romance realm, the latter of which is probably closest to describing what I'm working on as a writer myself.
I'm also terribly wordy as you can see, adore cats, my family, New York, and music of almost every form but especially classical, musical theater, and the Beatles, who are a genre all unto themselves.
Whew. That's more than you need to know about me! I need to catch up on my reading here so I can learn about you guys now.
Anyway. I am indeed a stranger, named Kira, and the strange land is that of fantasy, which isn't my usual roaming ground, but lately I've found myself exploring its territory more and more often.
To describe myself: first, as my original post here mentions, I'm the admin/co-founder of the EpiGuide, one of the first communities devoted to web-based fiction -- meaning fiction intended primarily if not solely for an online audience. The site was founded as a community/online magazine hybrid in 1997, and though to start with most of us focused on websoaps (a form of serialized work in narrative form inspired in part by daytime or nighttime continuing dramas), the community has expanded to cover all sorts of genres and formats, including serialized novels, ebooks, video webseries, podcasts, and so on. We're now mostly a forum and a terrific resource for promoting one's online work, hint hint.
Personally speaking, I'm the writer of About Schuyler Falls, a serialized drama that launched in 1996 and is still available online, albeit currently on hiatus. It tells the twisted tales of a deeply interconnected group of people in a small upstate New York town, where their vulnerabilities and dark sides are constantly putting them at risk for the worst possible situations their sadistic creator can devise.
ASF is my 'hobby' work. I'm also the author of four novels, two of which are actually fantasy-based (yay! finally on-topic!) and are a melange of genres, mixing mystery, historical romance, and fantasy. You can read about these time travel / werewolf romances here; they're kind of in a niche industry, a "personalized" novel where customers can insert the names and physical characteristics of the lead characters. (Basically they're sold as gift books.)
The two paranormals--really one is a YA adaptation of the adult romance--involve a young mystery-loving librarian unlocking the secret behind a mystical book, which sends her back in time to Victorian London right in the middle of a serial killer's murderous spree. (And no, it's not Jack the Ripper!) She's soon targeted by the killer, called "The Beast," and joins forces with a secretive but sexy detective, a real-life Sherlock Holmes, to catch the criminal. Unfortunately, the detective's own dark side could be at the center of the crimes, which just happen to occur only during the full moon. Though falling for the enigmatic detective, our heroine has an unhappy discovery ahead of her when she realizes the path of clues lead to her beloved's door.
Now that I've left this publisher and niche territory, I'm planning on rewriting this basic set-up into a series of novels, entirely original and non-personalized, so I can truly explore the Victorian world, its darker and more gruesome sides, and utilize more fantasy elements, including digging into the culture of a rural werewolf community in this 19th century setting -- and how time travel might create even more trouble for a tortured werewolf due to his connection to nature and the moon. They're still paranormal romance novels, so romance is a big factor in them, but my hope is to incorporate more history and more realistic depictions of what it would be like to exist as a werewolf. None of this bare-chested Alpha stuff for me! In my fantasy world, being a werewolf is an extremely painful, torturous existance--when you're not tormented by the moon you're being hunted by humans, or putting those you love in terrible danger.
So that's what I'm writing right now. My other work is as a freelance editor and book doctor (i.e. a developmental editor, helping the author shape his or her story from outline to final draft), and am currently working on an author's series of epic fantasy novels for the YA market.
Hmmm, what else? Oh, my first introduction to fantasy was the Pern series, and to this day if I could have invented one story "device" it would be the emotional/psychic link between Pern's dragons and their riders. I freakin' loved that. Though I lost interest in Pern after the first trilogy and the Menolly books. I shifted to Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, which again lost me after the first four or five entries. I do love LOTR and Harry Potter, particularly the latter's Remus Lupin (which is why I chose werewolves as my creature-of-choice in my romances). And I'm just beginning to explore the steampunk / gaslight romance realm, the latter of which is probably closest to describing what I'm working on as a writer myself.
I'm also terribly wordy as you can see, adore cats, my family, New York, and music of almost every form but especially classical, musical theater, and the Beatles, who are a genre all unto themselves.
Whew. That's more than you need to know about me! I need to catch up on my reading here so I can learn about you guys now.
Inkling
Auror
Myth Weaver
Troubadour
