K. Ancrum

Who I am:
My name is Kayla. I’m a 25 year old author from Chicago. I’ve been writing books for about 10 years now. The Wicker King is my debut novel. I used to write a couple of serials on tumblr, though, so if you find any of my stuff floating around out there, feel free to enjoy it.

What I am doing here: I run this blog for a couple of reasons:
1. Networking: I love meeting people who work in the publishing industry in a no-pressure fun environment. Making connections with other novelists is also really important to me. It’s always good to have good friends.
2. Holding an open view of my journey into mainstream publishing: There are only a couple places online where one can watch someone go through every little instance of insecurity and advancement in regards to publishing a book. I wanted to share this journey with everybody— but especially with my fellow young aspiring writers who are really curious and a little more fragile than other novelists. I was in a position where I could probably have self published and been quite happy with that. But, i’m going to stay the course, because I have time and I have so many people who’ve put a ton of time and effort into believing in my ability to make it, that not trying at all feels like a violent disservice to everyone involved.
3. Providing Publishing/Lit/Book Market information: I’m not nearly as illustrious as the wonderful booksandpublishing, but I try my best.
4. Supporting other writers: As my followership grows and becomes more impressive, I find myself becoming more and more interested in pimping other self published/aspiring writers on my site. I’m followed by around 15 major publishers (Little Brown, Simon and Schuster, etc) and more than 50 agents and editors. If someone manages to find someone to take their work seriously through my humble blog, I would be over the fucking moon. Everyone needs all the help and happenstance they can afford in this industry.
My Work:
I generally write vaguely paranormal YA fiction about teenage horrors.
I have quite a few projects up in the air right now.
Currently I am working on:
Novels:
The Incomprehensible Wait of Ryan Bird and The Star Kid. A multimedia novel about a girl and a boy falling in love while trying to catch transmissions sent to the girl by her father in space. I’m still working through the concept but I’m intending for there to be a soundscape with the book, so everything has to be done with excessive deliberation.
Bill the Abomination: A romantic tragedy about a time traveler set in the 1980s. You can read the beginning of it *here*.
I also write essays about diversity. Most of them are about race, but I feel really strongly about LGBTQAI representation and feminism so I have a couple about those topics as well.
But all in all, I’m really just here to scream about Arthurian shit, make friends and talk to people about books we all love.