Author Spotlight: Katharine Eliska Kimbriel (Part 1)
Today’s author spotlight is on my fellow Yard Dog Press author Katharine Eliska Kimbriel. Katharine is the author of the chapbook Wings of Morning from Yard Dog Press. (If you don’t already know about Kathi and my upcoming Chapbook reading and prize giveaway at Soonercon, you can find the details here.) You can read part 2 of the interview here.
Tales of power and magic often speak of transitions. Magicians pass from day into night, from dark into dawn-they stand on the threshold of change and cast their spells. The stories we usually tell about our heroes are the flashy ones, the calling of the lightning tales, the riding of the storm saga, the splitting the earth and swallowing the enemy whole adventures.
Wings of Morning tells about two heroines, both capable in their own ways of pyrotechnics, but this time learning lessons of subtle power. Anthropologist Brenna Stewart discovers that you can neither run from nor dictate to magic, while young Alfreda Sorensson of Night Calls and Kindred Rites learns that the power of life and death may be the greatest authority of all...and that magic may have nothing to do with it.
Katharine is also the author of Fires of Nuala, which was published by Warner Books. Katharine is currently editing an E-Book version of Fires of Nuala, which will be available from Book View Café.
The people of Nuala had long fought a unique battle for survival. As their planet's high radiation levels mutated the race in unexpected, often deadly ways, the rate of fertility diminished with generations. And the founding families, those who had made their fortunes off the trinium mines, used their wealth to find people from other worlds to broaden the planet's gene pool.
Indeed, in the ruling Atare family, it had been decreed that ruler and direct heirs alike must marry offworlders to ensure the purity and continuation of the line. But now someone had ruthlessly slain both the Atare elder and almost all his heirs. Was the traitor one of their own, or offworlder agents out to seize control of the government and the mines? And could the new Atare leader and Darame, a beautiful thief from the stars, unmask Nuala's enemies before it was too late?
In addition, Katharine is also working on a script for a manga.
“The manga idea started out in my head as a YA novel, but I was having trouble with my eyes at the time, and couldn’t read. I started watching anime, instead, and realized that DRAGONRAIN could be a manga,” Katherine said. “So I’m doodling around. It has characters that are both younger and adult so like the Alfreda tales, I hope that people of all ages will like the story.”
Katharine said that she has always wanted to write a story with dragons in it.
“I was still living in my parents’ home in Indiana when I realized dragons and I were very tight. One morning before dawn I was awakened by the sound of a dragon breathing fire! I literally thought: “A DRAGON!” and then leaped out of bed and to the window, where I cranked the old iron slides like mad to get them open. I was just in time to see sandbags flying everywhere as a hot air balloon just missed our neighbor’s TV antenna on their two story house. It landed six blocks closer to the river in a medical parking lot. It was pretty cool, but not as cool as a dragon would have been! So I was destined for dragons.”