Check out this author spotlight for fantasy writer KT Wilder!
You can find all the links for where to find her furthest down the page, and don’t forget to check out her books!
1. Hi! Welcome to my humble blog of all things bookish! I would like for us to start by getting to know you. Give us a short bio, please!
Hello! I’m KT Wilder. I live in Fort Worth, TX with my wife, our 4 dogs, 2 finch birds, 3 fish, 2 horses, and 1 bearded dragon. I self published my first, and currently only, novel Between Worlds on my birthday July 28th. I’ve been competing horses since I was 12. I started with barrel racing, moved into hunter/jumpers and I’m now an eventer. My horse Delaney, whom the book Between Worlds is dedicated to, I’ve had for 14 years as of May. He’s 21 years old and retired. Gandalf is my young competition horse, the first horse I’ve trained from step 1. Most of my spare time is spent with them. The rest of it is spent playing video games or going on adventures with my wife. Survival games are our favorite, but if I’m playing by myself I like farm simulators and Assassins Creed. We like to visit zoos, go to the dog park, or find other shenanigans to get into. Other hobbies of mine involve painting, crochet, and meditation. I hate doing the dishes.
2. To get to know you just a little bit better, I’d like to ask you some this or that questions. Answer 5 of these (or more) and explain why you chose this or that, or maybe an entirely different alternative!
Winter, spring, summer or autumn?
I used to say winter because I love the holidays but after the last 4 days of snowmagedon 2021 I’m going to go back to saying Autumn is my favorite season. It’s cool enough for flannels if I’m lucky, everything is pumpkin spice, and the horses get their fluffy soft winter coats. I’m one of the lucky ones that didn’t lose power but we didn’t have running water for two days. We’re lucky no pipes have burst yet. You can have winter back, I’ll keep my snowless fall season.
Tea or coffee?
Tea. I prefer tea over most drinks – I am southern and sweet tea is life – but most of the time I drink coffee on work days because I need that extra caffeine boost. There is a cabinet in my office that my dad made in highschool. It’s gorgeous and has glass fronts. It is completely packed with loose leaf and bagged teas. I love black teas mostly, with lavender or rose notes. Anything I can put honey in. My second favorite is mint and floral teas. Everyone in my family knows that tea always makes the perfect gift!
Morning or evening?
I have never been, nor will I ever be, a morning person. 100% of Between Worlds was written between midnight and 5 am. The exceptions are: beach vacations, horse shows, and christmas morning. Even then, it’s a chore to get me up. And if left alone long enough, I can fall right back to sleep without issues. My wife hates that. I’ve always been a night person, which was great in college because I worked a night shift job for a while doing security at this classy independent/assisted living/memory care facility. It was amazing and I actually finished the first draft of Between Worlds while working there. I’d go back to night shift in a heartbeat!
Mountains or beaches?
Mountains. I’ve always felt at home in the deep, dense woods and sloping white capped mountains. The Appalachians are my favorite place to be. I prefer cooler weather, and the mountain air is unbeatable. I’ve lived near beaches much of my life and I do enjoy them, but they just aren’t home. Rainy days in the mountains are definitely not conducive to owning and managing horses but it’s still a lingering dream of mine to live deep in those mountain woods someday.
Plotter or pantser?
I fly by the seat of my pants for first drafts. I’m terrible at following outlines, they actually give me frequent writers block. It’s been a struggle with the sequel to Between Worlds since I don’t have a choice, I have to follow the outline for things to line up correctly and to tie up the loose ends from book1. Between Worlds didn’t get an actual plot until draft 2 when I had to clean everything up and make sure it fit together. Book 1 was written in a sequence of scenes that I eventually stitched together and modified to become a lucid story.
3. When you look for books to read, what trope or type of story will always catch your attention?
Romance, most of the time, is a necessity for me. I like stories where romance isn’t necessarily the main plot thread however. I’m a sucker for an already established couple having to go through story events together – it’s not always about falling in love but fighting to keep that love alive! I’m always attracted to stories with anti-hero villains. When what a villain stands for makes you question what side you’re really supposed to be on, I am all for it.
Also please, please, give me more stories with gay couples that don’t die. We need more of those. And more stories about gay couples where being gay isn’t the heart of the plot. If a gay couple is going on a dragon riding adventure to save a village, I will buy it and read it a hundred times.
4. What do you write? Tell us about your current projects and the latest happenings!
Currently I’m working on the sequel to Between Worlds, which I am calling book 2. At the moment it’s taking up most of my time. It delves a lot deeper and darker into an ever expanding universe with old characters from the first book and a lot of new faces. There’s a lot more to it that in the first book so it’s proven to be a time consuming challenge.
Another project I’m working on is under the working title of The Story of Us. It focuses on a family of 8 siblings and their parents, with a supernatural twist. The entire family is in a coalition of supernatural hunters that actually work to keep the balance between all the supernatural creatures and the unsuspecting humans that have no idea they exist. Each sibling is touched by the supernatural from two werewolves, a vampire, witches, the child that just wants to be normal, and two that fell down the rabbit hole like Alice into other worlds for several years before returning not quite human anymore. It’s a big project that starts with the mother’s story – and how a horse changed everything. I’m really proud of how it’s grown and developed, I can’t wait to share it!
5. What is your most recent release? Give us a short presentation, cover, and a link for where to buy it!
Between Worlds was published on Amazon last year in July. It’s the story of Faelyn, and her wyre Celestin. Along with their found family, they are still piecing their lives back together in the wake of a virus that destroyed most of the population in their world before mysteriously disappearing. Faelyn comes across Warren, someone important from the years the virus was active, and with him signs of a new epidemic arise. Things are not what they seem (a trope I love!) and all the worlds are at risk if they don’t figure it out.
6. What real-life inspiration do you draw from, and what are your primary fictional sources of inspiration (books, authors, films, music, etc.)? Name a few!
Being out in the woods with the horses is a serious source for me, not quite so much for inspiration but for grounding. It quiets my mind and helps me keep my thoughts straight. I find relief in the horses, so when I go home to write or plot or do anything else writing related I can really focus. The movements of the horses also help a lot with description in the scenes I’m working on currently. I also find a lot of inspiration in settings like airports and coffee shops. Between spaces provide a certain feeling and mood that helps me get those creative juices flowing. If I get really stuck though, I play videogames or read something new to help get back on track. Music is a huge influence to me as well, and pinterest. Movie scores to Imagine Dragons, every song can spark a scene. Pinterest is just a convenient form of media that lets me find visual inspiration for all kinds of projects; great for world building, character creation, prompts, just about anything a writer could need to help get a project going.
I’m a huge fan of Sarah J Maas, her books are my current go to. Her writing style is so fresh and intriguing it’s easy to get lost, and her worlds are gorgeous. Definitely idea sparking! I have to give a lot of credit to Christopher Paolini too, as after I read Eragon the original ideas for Between Worlds started to form. I get a lot of inspiration from emotions and experiences, so poetry is another go to of mine – Tyler Knott Gregson and Nikita Gill are two of my absolute favorite poets. Gregson does a workshop every now and again that aren’t exactly writing focused but immensely helpful with mindset and clarity. Lastly I have to say, Austin Kloen’s book Steal Like An Artist changed my writing life. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who creates things to read this book.
7. What is your writing routine? If you have one, give us the run-down!
If there is a routine, it’s chaotic at best. My main goal when I do have the time to sit and write is to write something. 80% of the time it ends up being me working on posts for social media and research that usually ends up with me on pinterest for 4 hours. I don’t have a very strict routine as I am not the best at following them. I work 2 jobs and stay pretty busy with the horses, so anytime I sit down and feel like I can write is a blessing. I go days without producing anything, then suddenly a switch flips in my brain and I spit out 4,000 words in two days. The good thing is even when I’m not writing I’m thinking about it. That helps when the writing inspiration hits.
8. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice as you started out on the path to become an author, what would it be?
Keep writing what you want. Don’t look back and think, no one is going to like this, it’s weird. Just write for you. Love every moment of it, put your feelings and hope into it, even the ones that hurt. Let the words help you feel better. Something beautiful comes from it, I promise.
9. Last but not least: where can we find you? Drop those links!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735378917
