Sept. 9, 2025
Thriller Author Keira N James: Blurring Reality and Fiction
Keira N James, bestselling indie thriller author, joins us to discuss her journey from a small town in Georgia to becoming a powerful voice in the thriller genre with 15 books under her belt.
• Drawing inspiration from real-life experiences to create what she calls "exaggerated realities"
• Transition from urban fiction to thriller writing after finding her voice in the "dark side of fiction"
• Finding success with bestsellers like "The Grave Mistake" and the spicy short story collection "Embodied"
• Challenging stereotypes about Black women and creating morally ambiguous characters readers can't help but root for
• Using writing as therapy to process personal experiences, especially in her military thriller "Love and War"
• Being part of "Black Women Who Write Thrillers" collective creating space for diverse voices in the genre
• Upcoming release of psychological novella "Orchid" on October 3rd
• Participating in the Black Book Bash in Jacksonville, Florida with her pen sisters
Follow Keira N James on Facebook at Keira N James and on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok @TheKeiraNJames.
outro
00:00 - Meet Thriller Author Kira N James
09:04 - The Grave Mistake and Reader Reactions
13:53 - From Urban Fiction to Thriller Writing
17:12 - Drawing Stories from Real Experiences
20:30 - Love and War: A Military Thriller
26:25 - Black Women Who Write Thrillers
32:29 - Upcoming Projects and Black Book Bash
36:55 - Advice for Aspiring Authors
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Hey y'all.
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Hey, welcome back.
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You are watching and listening to Licks Between the Lines, where I am your host.
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Licks, for the most part, I try to stay in between the lines, but we all know that I occasionally cross them.
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Today, I am so excited that we have a special guest.
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I've been trying to get her in for the longest and finally she is here and I'm going to let her introduce herself.
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I want you to let us know what you're working on.
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We want to know your best sellers.
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Hey y'all.
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So I am Kira N James, but you can call me Kira.
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I'm an indie thriller author straight out of Danville, georgia, a very small country town probably couldn't find it on a map, but currently I am sitting at about 15 books, most of which are not on Amazon, but the ones that are, I'll say over half of them have been bestsellers, and right now my current bestseller is the Grave Mistake.
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It is a domestic suspense thriller that I am very excited about and cannot wait to get into with the legs.
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I'm excited to be on this show, so thank you so much for having me.
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I thank you for accepting.
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Now, wait a minute.
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When did this one drop, you know?
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the great mistake was an impulse release, which I tend to do sometimes.
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Sometimes I can get very impulsive.
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It was not planned at all.
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It is actually a re-release of a previous title when I was signed to my mentor's publishing company, literary Freedom Publishing, and the original title of the story was the Sin of Jasmine.
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And I say last week, I want to say I re-released it as the Grave Mist mistake, with a new title and a new cover, and I have been getting dms ever since.
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But I'm like you know what?
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What can I say?
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I wrote the story, so y'all coming with the smoke, I'm gonna have to take it because those characters is crazy I wanted to was this regarding like is this the post that you had?
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I've seen you post before saying that they were in your DMs about the story.
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Is this the one that they were talking about?
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the one, the post that I think that you are referring to, is for body, specifically for the story the sweetest taste of sand, because that was really spicy, that was on the spiciest side.
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I'm nosy as hell.
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What did Miss just say?
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I don't?
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know.
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Okay, this is how y'all coming.
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All right then, but all I can do is take it.
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I got a question about the re-release, so did you have people inboxing you about who read it before and did they reread it?
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Did they have like any commentary on it?
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No, these were new readers who had just.
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They only learned that it was a re-release because it was a note in the book.
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So it wasn't the fact that it was a re-release because it was a note, um, in the book.
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So it wasn't the fact that it was a re-release that they were messaging me about.
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It was more so along the lines of girl, what does this character got going on, or I know this did not happen.
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You know those type of things.
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I don't want to spoil it, but they were, um, they were very direct and assertive with those questions.
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I'm like I'm trying to answer it the best that I can, but they were coming in hot.
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They were coming in hot.
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Goodness, do you always get messages like that in the DM?
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I don't, this is new for me, but I welcome it because I love engaging with readers, I love connecting with readers.
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Um, I don't ever want it to feel like, just because I'm an author and they're the reader, that I'm untouchable, I'm unreachable, like no, I'm very personable, um, and down to earth.
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So I welcome the DMS.
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I'll tell you like hey, when you start reading a book, my dms are open like the doors of the church are open.
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I'm here I love that.
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Are you in it?
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Look, I'm all off topic, but now that you said that the doors are open are you in these, like are you in any reader groups?
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am I in reader groups?
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Uh-huh, not many.
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I think I'm in about two reader groups because there was a thing like oh, authors shouldn't be in reader spaces because they can't talk freely, and I respect that.
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So I am in my book club group Black Women who Read Thriller, horror and Suspense, my book club group Black Women who Read Thriller, horror and Suspense, and I think maybe one other one is Black Girls who Read or who Read Too.
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Black Girls who Read, I think.
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I think I may be in both of those, especially the Thriller book club, and I see a lot of author and reader interaction.
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So you say you have written 15 books and so how many are published right now?
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Did you have to go in, did you re-release half of your catalog or did you pull those?
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yes.
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So I pulled about half of them and I re-released them under new titles, which I would say four are of the stories embodied are.
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No.
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Two of the stories embodied are, um re-released.
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So the sweetest types of sin.
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I rewrote that and put it embodied.
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I condensed it to a short story and a woman scorned um.
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That was also a re-release that I put in that collection because I felt like it was.
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It was very fitting.
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It was very fitting for the thing have you always written thriller, suspense or is this like your no no, um, when I first, I well, I published my first book in 2018.
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And I honestly can't even say what genre I wrote in, what category I wrote in, because I came into it with no knowledge of the industry, with how it worked or anything like that, with how it worked, or anything like that.
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So at times I still feel like I'm kind of finding my footing.
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But about three years ago, I wrote the Sin of Jasmine, which is now re-released as the Great Mistake.
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I wrote that intentionally as a thriller, because that's what I found myself more drawn to as far as reading and writing, because even though I'm an author, I'm still a very avid reader too.
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So I was like, okay, I think this could work for me.
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This would work better for me, especially considering the type of stories that I wanted to start writing Urban fiction, urban romance.
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They couldn't handle the type of stories that I wanted to write.
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So I was like, okay, let me just come over here and see what's going on on the dark side of fiction.
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And they woke on me with open arms and I'm still here.
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That was going to be my question.
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What drew you into thriller suspense?
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In my real life.
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I enjoy the thrill, I enjoy the suspense.
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I love a good surprise and that's what I wanted to write and that's what I like to read.
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I love that not knowing, like the not knowing feeling what's's coming next, trying to guess what's next, whether I'm right or I'm wrong.
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That's what I love about thriller and suspense.
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It's just the the thrill of it all, the action of it all, the suspense of it all when I tell you bodied, embodied yeah, I was.
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I was gonna say I'm not gonna give away any spoilers because I want people to be able to enjoy it like I did, but when I tell you, but you said it continued.
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There's a part, there's a part two there is a part two um that tanisha stewart um wrote.
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She wrote volume two, which she finishes the last story in my volume.
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So she finishes the authorized user and then you get two more stories in her book so did you help co-write any of those in here?
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did y'all help co-write any in each book, or it just?
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no.
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Um.
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So what happened funny story with how that collaboration came about.
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Um, we were just in the group chat and I think all of us was just having a day, and so I dropped the cover of bodied in there like hey guys, you know, hopefully this will make y'all happy.
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And tanisha was like I don't know what this is, but I need to be part of it.
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And that's how it came about.
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And I I knew that I wanted it to.
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I wanted the two books to tie in together somehow, and so we came up with the idea for the last story in my book for her to pick it up in her book, so it kind of interconnects and it not feels like two completely different books that don't have anything to do with each other.
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I still wanted it to read as a collaborative series why am I so scared to start body two?
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can you tell me, philly's on the cliffhanger, is there going to be a body three?
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or is it no, I'm not really a series girl, so there's not going to be a volume three as of right now.
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Um, but as I mentioned before, I am very impulsive, so then again knows.
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But there are no cliffhangers in volume two.
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You will get very solid, well-rounded stories in there.
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Tanisha is an amazing writer, so you're going to get what you need from those books.
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She's on my list too.
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I just read another one of her Christian books, so I can only imagine I can't wait to dive into part two and then I start the con artist soon.
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But the con artist.
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Okay, we gonna get into that when you get done who that was told me I was gonna need a whole, like it's really gonna.
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If body was how it was, then the con artist was that you that told me that then the con artist was really gonna I mean I'll.
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I'll just say this I put a trigger warning in the con artist.
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I never do trigger warnings, and it's not because the book is heavy or it's deep or anything like that, it's just like hey, I'm letting y'all know.
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Now, buckle up buttercup, because it's about to get real.
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It's crazy when a thriller author tells you to buckle up.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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When writing your thrillers, what stereotypes do you like to challenge or avoid in your work?
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I like to avoid the stereotype of especially women with careers.
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I've never written like a housewife because that's not my lifestyle and a lot of my stories I pull from personal experience, so I don't like to perpetuate the stereotype of housewives.
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Anything dealing with how the how society sees black people or views black people, or what they think a black person's life look like.
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I challenge all of that, as well as your morals, to be honest, because people in my books be doing crazy stuff and nine times out of ten you'll find yourself rooting for them.
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So it's like, oh, there's a little moral ambiguity there, so yeah, so I heard you say that you pull some of those.
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Did I hear you say you pull some of these stories from like life, from real life?
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oh, yeah, all of them.
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All of the stories that I write are real.
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Wait, um, they're just like what I like to call exaggerated realities, like all of the situations that the characters go through.
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They are are exaggerated for the sake of fiction, but those situations that they find themselves in very much real their feelings, some of their actions.
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Yeah, writing is therapy, man.
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Are the characters that you write?
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Are they, like, based on people that you know, or their personalities like based on people that you know, or did you build them up yourself?
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Like?
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absolutely.
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If it's not me, it's um somebody that I'm close to, something that I witnessed, um just by being around.
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You know certain people, because it's easier for me to pull from my experience than to just completely make up something.
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So, yeah, that makes me look.
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Make of that as you will Make of that as you will make of that as you will so.
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I'm really trying hard not to give anything away, because there's just this one scene embodied where I was like girl like you know somebody who let let their son put the girl was in the trunk of her car with somebody else, like and and now that you say you're pulling from experiences, I'm just like oh listen, I am 30 something years old.
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I have seen a lot, I have done a lot, so what you read is a culmination of those experiences.
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I would be honest, I don't know.
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I'm side eyeing you, the fact that, even though we know that they're exaggerated, but they're not not gonna be able, not, not a con artist.
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Is this like experience too, or?
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some of it, um, some one of the characters, one of the main characters, giselle.
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A lot of what she dealt with, a lot of her feelings, and that's me in a fictional, fabricated, exaggerated manner.
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But yeah, I mean, y'all say y'all want relatable characters, right?
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So what's more relatable than me writing about myself or me writing about somebody that I know?
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it was crazy because literally every careful for real like for no, for real, because, like every story was like dang this kid.
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Really, like you know how you say, even though you said they were exaggerated, they wasn't exaggerated to the point where they couldn't be real life.
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So, that's one thing I've learned.
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In Thriller, you know dark romance kind of takes it and it goes left with the morally gray man.
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But the thrillers I'm starting to see like this is really like some first 48 type stuff.
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Yeah, I live for it though.
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I mean I don't live to live for it, though.
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I mean, I don't live to live for it, but I live to write about it because I ain't trying to go through none of that shit, no more so yeah jeez, like I've been doing enough so we're gonna go and do a quick commercial break and then we will be right back.
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All right, hey, you guys we are back from commercial break and, kira, I want to know which book is your was your favorite to write oh, that's easy.
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Um, my favorite book in my catalog to date is Love and War.
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It's a military thriller about a naval officer who is wronged and she suffers a very devastating loss to someone who's very close to her.
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She suffers a very devastating loss to someone who's very close to her and the people around her, the people responsible, they really they live to regret it.
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And I say that's my favorite book because as a vet, like as a Navy veteran, because I did serve six years in the military, it was so fun to like relive those moments in those places and to also get some things off of my chest.
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Because that is another book that is full from personal experience and it's very, very personal to me and I hold it very close to my heart.
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So Love and War hands down my favorite book in my catalog.
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If this was adapted into like a movie or a series, who could you see playing the lead characters?
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Who could I see playing the lead character?
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That is a very good question, and I think I would like to see Tika Sumter in that role, because I don't feel like I've seen her in anything action related yet, but I like her as an actress and I think that she would do good in that.
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Now that you say that, I don't think even in Sonic she's not really active.
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I think it would be nice for her to have a military role, especially in Navy.
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I can see it.
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Or that young lady from Woman King.
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She played like she was in Viola's tribe, I guess you can call it.
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I can't think of her name, but I think that she would do really good too, because she killed that role in that movie.
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Which one?
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Is she the?
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one who actually is a?
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Um.
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Have you seen the one with the black samurai, where she's on TikTok and YouTube and um instagram?
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Is that who you're talking about?
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She practices like martial arts, she does like, she has like, so I cannot think of her name.
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I wouldn't be surprised.
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I wouldn't be surprised, um, if it is her, but I'm not exactly sure who you're talking about.
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Now I'm gonna have to go look her up.
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I'm gonna have to go look her up.
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I was just gonna say I'm gonna have to go re-watch the woman king yeah, so yeah, dang, don't look, I don't have to.
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I was gonna say don't make me go pull this cast up because it's gonna eat away it's gonna eat away at me.
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I wanted to ask have you taken any writing classes or done any workshops, writing workshops or any writing retreats?
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No, no writing classes other than the ones that were required for my degree, which was.
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I don't even know if it was a writing class, I just knew that I had to write a bunch of papers.
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No writing classes, no workshops.
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But I do a lot of studying and research on my own um by reading like resource books, reading books in the genre that I write in that type of thing, but nothing like official it's.
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I just you know, okay, um, how, like you, you didn't take any classes or anything.
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How did you know how to go, like, how to do start the process for the publishing to get your work out there?
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I called myself doing research before I actually hit publish on my very first book, and as soon as the book went live, I realized that I hadn't done nearly enough.
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Um, so everything that I've learned, everything that people get from my books, are basically me learning along the way.
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Um, whether it's, like I said, me learning from research or reading, um, I also have my pen sisters and I read a lot of what's online because I'm naturally an inquisitive person, so I'm always constantly learning something, looking up something, researching something, so it's no different with publishing.
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So yeah, Did you have to edit your own books?
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Did you make your own, like when you were first starting out?
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Did you edit?
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and edit all of your covers and you can tell like all of them was given very much DIY.
00:22:38.126 --> 00:22:50.409
And you can tell like all of them was given very much DIY with the editing with the book covers, because I wasn't signed to a publishing house.
00:22:50.409 --> 00:22:52.515
Everything that I did came out of pocket and I was like editors are expensive.
00:22:52.515 --> 00:23:22.411
I mean, I could sit here and read the book and make sure the commas in the right place and the commas were not in the right place, sure, the commas in the right place and the commas were not in the right place, the periods were not in the right place, and that was that led to me, um, taking them down and re-releasing them, because readers can tell you know the amount of effort and investment that an author has made into their book, based on the end product.
00:23:22.411 --> 00:23:40.127
And as far as, like, the editing and cover design and things like that, yeah, we can do it on our own, but if you are not, if you have no expertise in the area, it's going to show.
00:23:43.415 --> 00:23:51.165
So how did you know, when you picked the right editor and publisher, how did you know that that was the right person or the right team to go with?
00:23:52.435 --> 00:23:57.136
It felt natural, it felt organic.
00:23:57.136 --> 00:24:05.881
It didn't feel like a transaction or um, it wasn't super stuffy like business all the time.
00:24:05.881 --> 00:24:15.407
Um, we were able to be ourselves but, at the same time, still be on the same page, focused on the same goal, and get the work done.
00:24:15.407 --> 00:24:18.079
It just felt right.
00:24:18.721 --> 00:24:19.304
It felt right.
00:24:19.304 --> 00:24:24.048
Did you find them like in groups, or how did you go about looking for them or finding?
00:24:24.048 --> 00:24:25.679
How was that process?
00:24:26.775 --> 00:24:52.361
Whenever I would see like a recommendation, I would take it upon myself to go look up that person's work, whether you know it's a publisher, to see what type of books they publish, or if it's an editor, I'll read the book that they edited and if it's something that I like or was aligned with what I wanted to do, then I may reach out.
00:24:52.361 --> 00:25:01.191
Or I may, you know, if I'm not where I need to be to pay for the services, I'll keep thugging it until I'm able to.
00:25:01.191 --> 00:25:10.079
But right now my editor is Tanisha Stewart and we have been doing some good work together, some very good work together.
00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:12.025
I love working with her.
00:25:12.025 --> 00:25:12.727
She's really good.
00:25:12.727 --> 00:25:19.627
Black women who write with your pen sisters, do everybody have like a different roles or?
00:25:22.102 --> 00:25:35.135
um, I think I don't know if I would say that we all have different roles, but we definitely know our strengths and we play to our strengths, and whatever one lacks, we are always there.
00:25:35.135 --> 00:25:39.224
You know, stepping in, sometimes got them, even having to ask.
00:25:39.224 --> 00:25:49.398
So, um, that's how I would describe them, like we, we don't have roles, but we play to our strengths and we do them really well.
00:25:49.398 --> 00:25:57.439
So shout out to me your mom's dime tony larue, um octavia grant and tanisha stewart those are my parents.
00:25:57.439 --> 00:25:58.401
Love them, love them.
00:25:59.663 --> 00:26:02.969
I actually talk with Toni really soon.
00:26:02.969 --> 00:26:04.842
She said yes to be a guest.
00:26:04.842 --> 00:26:06.621
I'm excited about that.
00:26:07.355 --> 00:26:08.439
Oh, that's going to be good.
00:26:09.522 --> 00:26:11.359
Oh man, how did you all meet?
00:26:15.037 --> 00:26:24.734
You know the Lord works in mysterious ways um.
00:26:24.734 --> 00:26:26.420
You know the lord works in mysterious ways um.
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:31.092
I read the asylum series written by tony and tanisha stewart right and I hopped into nisha's inbox, which is something that I.
00:26:31.092 --> 00:26:34.299
I didn't do that, but I hopped in her inbox.
00:26:34.299 --> 00:26:37.928
I was like, listen, I don't know what you got going on next.
00:26:37.928 --> 00:26:44.762
But inbox, I was like, listen, I don't know what you got going on next, but count me in.
00:26:44.762 --> 00:26:47.490
And then she went and told them and then it's like, oh, you write thriller, oh, no, you write suspense.
00:26:47.490 --> 00:26:54.166
And then we're all five black women just sitting here writing in this space that nobody knows about.
00:26:54.166 --> 00:27:09.207
And so tanisha created the, the group on facebook, and we just grew from there I seen that list and the um black women who write thrillers and suspense.
00:27:09.468 --> 00:27:21.914
I did not realize it was like that many black women who like it was a whole page long yeah, nobody.
00:27:22.438 --> 00:27:28.020
And we get that a lot like when readers are looking for recommendations.
00:27:28.020 --> 00:27:32.000
They're like I like freedom McFadden, but make it black.
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:33.044
And we're like girl.
00:27:33.044 --> 00:27:33.605
We right here.
00:27:33.605 --> 00:27:36.182
Like look no further.
00:27:36.182 --> 00:27:36.845
We right here.
00:27:40.643 --> 00:27:42.667
I'm not going to say what I was going to say.
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