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Kessily answers questions about her writing life:
What is one unexpected, good thing writing has brought to your life?
I’m going to be honest here. I don’t really remember much about my adult life before writing professionally. I sold my first story at twenty-one and have been working consistently ever since.
Switching to books, however, has led to a lot of changes. Short story and article writing tends to be pretty solitary for the most part. It was nice to realize that book authors have more of a community and that they welcome new authors in and help.
The past five years, since my first book came out, I’ve made a lot of friends in the author community and that’s been really wonderful. And of course, running Sexy Spanking Reads with you, and our other fellow authors, has been a great part of that.
If you could take a January holiday with no limits on cost, location, etc, where would you go? Who would you take with you?
Right now, I’m not sure I would want to travel anywhere. Having been locked down for so long, it feels weird going places now. I’m finding myself much more of an introvert.
But if the world was back to normal? I love Orlando and would love to have a nice long vacation there with my husband. We love Disney World but packing it all into a short trip means you don’t really have energy to do anything else. A few weeks there would be great.
I also love cruises so that would be my second choice.
Of all the books you’ve written, do you have a favorite?
Hmm. That’s too tough. I think I can narrow it down to my top three.
Mastering Amari is one of my few stand-alone books. The story was something I’d been wanting to do for a while. Many hours of research went into it, and it was really a labor of love. It’s probably one of my best and I’ve always been sad it was overlooked.
Scorpio (book two of Masters of the Zodiac) is another favorite, also a stand-alone, but it was a real challenge because it was part of a multi-author set and I had to collaborate with other authors to create the world and make sure everything lined up. I really enjoyed the challenge and I put a lot of extra time and effort into it.
My third favorite is a series: The Krampus Collective. I just have so much fun with these because each one is unique but also have some shared characteristics, and it’s fun bringing in the mythological aspects and making it fit in a more modern world, with a human mate.
I just realized my chosen top three are all paranormal romance and having seen that, I do have to admit it’s my favorite thing to write. I love the cowboys and actors in my contemporary books, but there’s something about magic that has always intrigued me.
What was the first book that made you cry?
Wow. That takes me way back. Hmm. The first ones I remember… The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (Robert Heinlein) and Flowers in the Attic (V.C. Andrews) both when I was about nine. Not sure which I read first.
When did you write your first story or book? Who did you show it to? Did they encourage you?
My first story was, like I said, back when I was around twenty-one. I was working as a fetish artist at the time. Making some extra money illustrating kink scenes for a magazine.
The editor loved some of the extra pictures I had done, but she could only use ones that matched stories she was printing, so she asked if I could write one to match. I think it was a western story, but I can’t remember. I had always enjoyed writing fanfic but had never really considered doing it professionally, but I gave it a try.
She snapped it up, said it was perfect, and said she wanted a story from me in every issue from now on. She was the editor for several different magazines so pretty soon I was writing quite a lot. My last estimate was around 400 published short stories under 20-ish pen names.
What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?
I could say covers and editors, because I’ve seen a lot of good authors go nowhere because they try to do it themselves, but for something big, I’d have to say Vellum. It really gives everything that professional pop.
More about Kessily:
I started out as a fetish artist for C.F. Publications more years ago than I care to admit. Within a few months I ended up writing for various magazines as well, and I've been doing both ever since. I've written 15 novels, a few novellas, and hundreds of short stories and articles over the years, and I've had one book of spanking illustrations published.
I spend a lot of time online making new friends from all around the world. I have a deep love of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy and I enjoy exploring D/s relationships through those genres. I have a blog where I explore topics of D/s in a less fictional way, discuss my books, and throw in the occasional short story for fun at Kessilylewel.com
