Dragon Soul Press interviewed Kim Adkins, an author featured in Fairy Rites and Reign of Fire.

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1. Introduce yourself.
   • Hi! I’m Kim Adkins. I’m a stay at home mom that has fallen in love with writing and with the
     various arts.
2. What prompted you to begin writing?
   • Honestly, and this goes into my favorite book as well, growing up I had no intentions to go into
     arts or writing at all. I wanted to be a paleontologist up until a very specific day. In 7 th grade I was starting to have some serious mental health issues, which none were treated properly which only made everything worse. It was a day of BAD weather, tornadoes with no where to hide, and while other, I have no other word for them other than miricles, happened which drove me to the arts in general, the last of the three is what brought me into writing. I remember sitting on my bed a dark room, thinking on the rest of the day and what everything meant as the darkness continued to creep into my mind uninvited. Then, something caught my eye on my bookshelf, then mostly filled with science volumes save for one little blue book that my grandma had given me for Christmas. It was glowing to my eyes, bright and shimmering. I picked it up, turned on the lights, and began to read Eragon by Christopher Paolini. That day I knew I had to get into the literary world, though it wasn’t a straight process from that day to deciding to write my own works. Now Eragon is truly my comfort series which I turn to when my days get dark again and I find putting my own pen to paper difficult.
3. Do you have a favorite story or poem you’ve written? What’s it about?
   • The favorite thing I have written so far has to be my short story Determination, which takes
     place in a science fantasy world of mine known as Nungai. Nungai has been a personal project
     of mine, with 13 years into world building at this point, and Determination is the first “non-
     human” piece I’ve written in the world. It follows a small fairy, Dejvya, as he returns from a hunt
     to find his village completely destroyed by a “metal mountain” which is, in truth, a large
     spaceship. He finds tracks leading away, each almost as long as he is tall, and vows to track
     down and kill the giants to avenge his lost loved ones. Of course such a journey is never easy,
     and there are additional problems that show up along the way.
4. How many projects do you have planned over the next few years? Tell us about one.
   • I have a number of projects planned over the next few years. To finish off 2024, and going into
     early 2025, I will have the first main Nungai book, Genysis, which is more of a world-building
     collection of shorts to put the setting of the world in place, published. This autumn I will have
     Country Fangs, an Urban Fantasy vampire novel, published as well to start off my vampire
     trilogy. Then in spring Stan Bubbles 2, my first sequel! Interspersed is a growing number of
     short stories in each of the 3 worlds/series. Of these, I’m really excited to be seeing Country
     Fangs hitting the shelves. It’s my first time working with a professionally edited novel, and it is a
     more homey novel for me. It follows the vampire Jean, who was turned during the French
     Revlution, as he’s forced to step up and face an unknown danger to his kind. I put my own spin
     on the vampire curse and magics in the trilogy, blending the hidden world of the supernatural
     smoothly within a reality which pretends vampires, magic, werewolves, and bigfoot are all
     simple myths and legends.
5. What is your writing process like?
   • My writing process can be fairly chaotic, but each world in my head works differently. Nungai I
     find meticulous world planning, then coming up with a character and finding a setting for them
     and just writing works best, while Stan likes to be properly planned out with outlines and
     detailed character listings. The Fangs books and stories…. they bite… I go in with a soft outline,
     but by chapter 5 I found myself spinning the outline around and going in completely different
     routes. The constant through them all though, is that I do my best writing while sitting down in a softly lit room, cozy blankets, and a blank page in front of me.
6. Where do you draw inspiration from?
   • I tend to draw inspiration from the world around me. Stan came first from the Evil Overlord List,
     but that particular iteration was quickly shelved. The story reformed over the following few
     years, and when a friend asked if I could finish a book between September to December, Stan
     came forth and Stan Bubbles, Evil verlord M.D. was finished by the end of September. Nungai
     simmered fro longer, with inspiration coming from first “What would it be like if Antartica had a
     native population?” and only growing with different scientific prompts. Fangs, well, I was asked if I could come up with a vampire story and the final piece sort of sprouted from my forehead like Athena to Zeus. But, overall I feel like I draw the best inspiration from asking questions, and
     trying to find answers that land in both science and fantasy realms.
7. What is one goal you have for your writing future?
   • I don’t think I have a set goal more than a sort of mission for my works. I really want to show
     that Science Fantasy is a viable genre outside of Star Wars and that women can write in that
     genre just as well as the men. That magic and spaceships can work together and make sense.
8. What do you hope readers enjoy most from your work?
   • I really hope readers enjoy the stories and the settings. From planets where the day is
     dangerous and a deer might try to eat you, to lush valleys with a dormant volcano in the center
     standing tall and stark against the greenery. Stories where a grown man has to change
     everything after he thinks his life is set in stone and good, to where a small fairy has to step up
     and hunt down monsters 10x his size. As I continue to write, I hope that everyone can find at
     least one story they relate to, if not several locations or characters.
9. Where can readers learn more about you?
   • You can find me and follow me on my website, Facebook, Amazon, and Ream Stories.