Tell us about yourself!

I’m a lake-obsessed Michigander, an aspiring hobbit, an amateur baker, a crazy cat lady who doesn’t own any cats (yet), an editor by day, and a writer also by day (I really like sleep, so I don’t do that “by night” thing). Being bad at intros, I asked my friends for help with the rest of this. Survey says I am epically cool (wait, since when?), obsessed with lynxes (SO FLUFFY), a Chex Mix queen (homemade Chex Mix is my kryptonite), a maker of super pretty journals (I do some bookbinding), and super smart because I know Latin (draco dormiens nunquam titillandus).

Wow, sorry, that was a lot of parentheses.

What does NobleBright fantasy mean to you? Why is it important?

When I started reading serious fantasy in high school, I would have said noblebright was fantasy. Those stories of hope, of good-hearted characters triumphing over evil despite overwhelming odds, of unqualified chosen ones persevering through hard tasks—that’s what defined fantasy for me.

For me, one thing that distinguishes noblebright is that it offers a more hopeful take on the currently popular “morally grey character”: noblebright protagonists are grey by virtue of being imperfect people, but they start the story with a set of values or moral code already in place and cling to it—however imperfectly—as the story progresses. Noblebright illustrates that not only is there hope and light and goodness in the world (and in people), but it’s possible for us to face the world and all its challenges without sacrificing those things.

How did you start writing?

I’ve been writing since I was young—I remember telling myself stories in my head while on family bike rides and also, uh, in the middle of playing AYSO soccer games. In elementary school I wrote a bunch of stories using the Storybook Weaver software, most influenced by Peter Pan (flying people!) and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Catwings (flying cats!).

I especially want to shout out my elementary school’s Publishing Center. Parent volunteers would transcribe and edit your story, then print out the pages so you could illustrate them. After you finished, they’d bind them into a book, complete with cardboard covers decorated with wallpaper; they even put an About the Author page at the beginning. I felt so cool getting my stories turned into books, and I still have my Publishing Center unicorn trilogy.

What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

I put a random flying animal in every fantasy world. In Inkling, it’s foxes, and in Lightless, it’s stingrays. A recently shelved project has flying turtles, and my WIP has flying snakes. For Windward King, it’s the squirrel-dragons.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

I love Easter eggs, and TWK contains about a dozen. Many readers caught the Tangled reference, but I don’t know about any of the others. For those who want to know, I shared most of them on Instagram and Facebook.

Please tell us about your world and your characters.

TWK is mostly set in an island nation inspired by Lofoten, Norway—which I’d never heard of until I googled “archipelago” while looking for worldbuilding ideas. The recently deceased king has left his only son to deal with squabbling nobles, economic problems, fleets of pirates, and a potentially hostile neighboring nation—until the prince is kidnapped the week before his coronation. Awkward.

Enter Shara, a shapeshifter who finds himself in the human capital city, where his lifelong self-doubt is compounded by the fact that he has no idea how to be human—he eats wilting flowers, craves raw meat, cannot understand the point of doors, and tries to groom his new human friend and “cave-brother,” Korith. Shara’s self-doubt (strongly inspired by my own, which was not a conscious authorial decision!) is balanced by Korith’s near-boundless confidence and determination to support everyone, including Shara and his own half-sister, Tishel, with whom he has a deeply strained relationship.

Do you have any works in progress? Tell us about them!

My WIP is Book 2 of a planned trilogy full of more brotherly love. The heart of the series is the friendship between an impulsive, idealistic, too-much-coffee-drinking prince and his loyal, protective, coffee-hating best friend/bodyguard. When the prince acquires impossible magic in Book 1 and basically becomes a fantasy-world superhero, the pair’s friendship is fundamentally altered, which causes multiple books worth of Angst, Drama, and Hijinks™. I plan to write the whole series before I publish any of it, so I’m afraid I can’t even guess at a publication date. 

What did you do with your first advance?

I’ve never received an advance, but the very first short story I sold was a token payment of $10. I took a $10 bill and stuck it in the book on the page where my story starts. It’s still there eightish years later, and I’d totally forgotten about it until right now! (I feel like this story illustrates my Shara-like struggle to celebrate my successes. Don’t be like me, kids. Celebrate your wins!)

Where can we find you online?

I’m @ktivanrest pretty much everywhere (as long as it doesn’t involve video; I’m allergic to being on camera!). I’m most active on Instagram and am trying to get better about posting regularly on Facebook, where I also have a reader group.

You can also visit my website (https://ktivanrest.com/) and sign up for my extremely infrequent newsletter.