Cracking Open The Cover With Author Elizabeth Kirke

Written by Stacey Rourke

If you’re a bookworm like me, authors are your rockstars. They create worlds we long to get lost in, book-boyfriends that make us swoon, and villains we love to hate. One of the perks of me being an author is that I get to rub elbows with some of these amazingly creative individuals quite regularly. I won’t lie, I have been known to go full fan-girl from time-to-time. Take, for example, when I met Marissa Meyer, author of The Lunar Chronicles. I burst into tears and asked her if she’d like the keys to my car. I wish I was kidding. Y’all… it was a rental. I have no idea how I planned to get home if she said yes. But, bless her heart, she declined my humble, and idiotic, offering. My point, booknerds—if I ever actually have one—is that I am here for you. I will sit down with these insanely talented authors, geek out and embarrassment myself over them, all so you can get to know them and their books a little better. After all, isn’t it the constant goal of our tribe of the literary obsessed to find out next book addiction?

For my first interview, I chose USA Today Best-selling author, Elizabeth Kirke. Think the magical world of Harry Potter, mixed with the butt-kicking action of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you’ll get an idea of the boatloads of fun found in her book Semester Aboard. Without further ado, let’s get to know Elizabeth!

Let’s start with the Twitter challenge! Describe your book in 280 characters or less.

More Magic, Less Sparkling! When Jen goes on a summer cruise, she has no idea she’s about to make friends with magical beings. But they aren’t the only magic ones on board. There’s someone else, someone dangerous, who that thinks the shipboard buffet is the passengers. Jen and her new friends are the only ones who can stop it…

Very well done, Elizabeth! I’m hooked already! Now, what’s the first scene you ever wrote that made you cry? 

I probably got choked up when I was writing a scene in this book where a character tells the story of how his parents, familiar, and basically all of his friends were slaughtered by vampires when he was younger, followed by his own struggles dealing with it. For sure I cried a bit in book two when I shot someone. While this book and series are intended for an upper YA audience, there’s an adult book that takes place in the same world and I basically kill off half of the characters in it and torture the rest. That one was a tear-jerker.

So, you’re saying no character is safe with you? You treat them with the same kindness as George R.R. Martin? I’m watching you, Kirke. Before you get the idea to take out another sweet MC, let’s change the subject to your writing. Does the process energise or exhaust you?

Probably both. Can I say both? Emotionally it energises me. I always feel better during and after writing, and I feel lousy if I haven’t written in a while. But physically, it’s exhausting. I tend to act out scenes if I can, and I go all in. The aforementioned death scenes? Yeah, I literally walk away from my computer and throw myself to the floor and have a grand ol’ death scene on the carpet usually while the dog sniffs me. Then I get up and put it on paper. That’s getting a lot harder now that I have two kids who tend to question what I’m doing though…

Call me the next time you act out a death scene. I feel that would be highly entertaining. Let me ask you this; do you think a person can be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?

I think anybody can write. The story is what you need. If you can come up with a compelling story and deep characters, half of the emotion is taken care of for you. Plus, there are plenty of authors who write emotions they’re unfamiliar with.

How did publishing your first book change your writing process?

It added pressure! It actually didn’t change it much, but it did give me the confidence to know I can do it. One of the hardest things about writing and publishing a book is wondering if you can do it. It seems so daunting. Once it’s over, it becomes a lot easier to do another, because you know you can. Sort of like casting a Patronus I guess.

Ah, yes. Like so many things in life, it all comes back to Harry Potter. Speaking now to new and upcoming writers, what would you say is the best money you ever spent as an author?

Probably on professional editing and cover design. As an author, you’re fooling yourself if you think you don’t need those things. After that, I think the best money I’ve spent was to enter the Readers’ Favourite International Book Awards. Semester Aboard won a gold medal for YA Paranormal and having an actual medal to hang in my office is pretty awesome.

Congratulations on your win! Very well-deserved! For this next question, let me lean in and keep this just between us. Do you ever hide secrets in your books that only a few people find?

Oh goodness, this. I prefer to call it “increasing reread value.” Some of my readers coined the phrase #SneakilyObvious to describe it. I slip in little bits of foreshadowing that you cannot possibly recognise as foreshadowing until you go back and read the book again. I’ve had a character outright say something that no reader thought was true until they read book three and then were like, wait, didn’t he say that in book one?! A lot of people read the entire trilogy (and the adult novel too) and then go back and are blown away by what they found not-so hidden between the lines. Have fun.

I would love to go back and reread for these clues! But first, let’s learn more about you! How many unpublished and half-finished books to you have?

Whoa, this is mean. Does this include books I have titles for and haven’t started yet? Because ugh. It has to be at least a dozen… I have part of one written for a four or five book fantasy series. I have two half started for the next More than Magic, not to mention another 7 or so planned. I have a cosy mystery started. I have the third in my Curse Collectors series started. Phew.

Well, that just gives us tons more to expect from you in the future! Now, let’s talk alternate realities. If you didn’t write, what would you be doing for a living?

Well, I majored in Anthropology and I also wanted to be a teacher. So I would have been in one of those fields for a bit. But, I left work to be a stay-at-home-mother, so I’d probably still be doing that, maybe with some sort of remote work on the side. To be honest though, writing has been my dream and passion for so long, I can’t imagine a life where I’m not writing.

And want you to continue to follow that passion and churn out more awesome books! What other projects are you working that readers can look forward to?

The More than Magic series, which is currently the trilogy starting with Semester Aboard, is getting a six book serial follow-up. So, each book will be shorter, but they’ll all release just a month apart! The serial takes place five years after the end of the third book. The series itself is called More than Magic: Rise of the Arcanist.

After that I also have the cosy mystery I mentioned. It’s a witch cosy series that I’m pretty excited about. It’ll probably be on the back burner while I focus on More than Magic, but we’ll see. And then, as I mentioned, I’ll be working on the third book in my paranormal romance series, The Curse Collectors.

Fantastic! Thank you so much for joining us, Elizabeth! Readers, be sure to check out Semester Aboard. You can also learn more about the amazing Mrs. Kirke by finding her on her website, Facebook, Instagram, and Patreon

Semester Aboard is available as an ebook, paperback, and an audiobook.

Thanks for reading, booknerds! I’ll see you next time with another great another to fan over! Until then, keep reading!

Have you read anything by Elizabeth Kirke? Tell us in the comments below!