Interview with Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Kellie Doherty

My next interview is with science fiction and fantasy writer Kellie Doherty, author of Finding Hekate, Losing Hold, and Sunkissed Flowers and Severed Ties.

Tell us about yourself! What would you like readers to know about you?

Kellie Doherty: Hi there! Thanks for having me today. My name is Kellie Doherty. I’m a science fiction and fantasy author who lives in Alaska. I’m an office assistant by day, a freelance editor by night, and an author literally all the time. (Seriously, I was stuffing envelopes earlier this week for my day-job and brainstorming story ideas at the same time.) Readers should know I am a champion for diversifying the publishing industry. As a queer lady, I never really saw myself—a shy bi girl—in the books that I read, not as a teen or as an adult. There are more queer characters in stories today, but I feel like there could be more positive representation. So all the stories I write have queer female main characters. I write adult fiction currently—novels, short stories, flash fiction, and even some poetry!

Alexis: Awesome! I think it’s wonderful to have more diverse books. I’m a teacher in my day job, and I’m always delighted to find great books that have good representation for all my students to read (or my daughter, who’s a burgeoning reader). Also, I was actually born in Alaska (though I live in Texas now), so I’m glad to interview someone who’s living in my home state!

Who is your favorite character in your book? What do you like about them? (or, which character do you hate most and why)

Kellie Doherty: Ooo, interesting question! It’s so unfair, though, like asking a mom to pick her favorite kid! I love all of my main characters so I can’t possible pick between them. From my secondary characters, I’d have to say my favorite in Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties has to be Roorik Shadowhunt. He’s a late addition who swoops in at the end of the book, and he’s simply fabulous. A glorious gay ex-banished-one-turned-fabric-dyer who helps the heroes in their time of need. He’s also one of my favs because I grabbed the inspiration from Critical Role. (Anyone who knows Shaun Gilmore, knows the energy Roorik would give off.) From Finding Hekate, one of my favorite characters is Cassidy Gates, the first mate. She’s sweet, sees the good in everything, and always tries to help out. But cross this lesbian lady and she’ll shoot you clear off the bridge! I had a reader compare her to Kaylee from Firefly, which made me so giddy I danced around my apartment.

Alexis: Exciting! I loved Firefly, and Kaylee was one of my favorite characters (I actually dressed as Kaylee for Halloween one year).

Sunkissed Feathers and Severed Ties by Kellie Doherty, Interview by Alexis Lantgen of Lunarianpress.com

What are you doing to de-stress during the pandemic? Is there any coping mechanism you’d recommend (or NOT recommend)?

Kellie Doherty: Reading is a lovely way to de-stress for me anytime but especially during this pandemic. I read science fiction and fantasy, so those stories take me into a completely different world. Right now I’m reading the Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. If you haven’t taken a stab at her seriously enormous book—It could’ve been broken into a trilogy easily!—I’d recommend it. Her descriptions are truly amazing. When not reading, I play video games (Minecraft is my current obsession right now) and take walks outside since it’s been super gorgeous here in the Land of the Midnight Sun. I also write to de-stress, as it’s nice to sink into a world full of magic and wyverns and daggers. For others, coping mechanisms are specific to the person so if reading, writing, playing games, or walking outside sound like they’ll help, do them! If woodworking, knitting, or playing sports sounds like more your style, do that instead!

As for something I wouldn’t recommend: Binge watching too much TV every single day. No shade to anyone who does this—like I said earlier, each person will have specific coping mechanisms—but if I sit in front of the TV (or lets be real, YouTube on my computer) for too long, I tend to feel worse than I had before. I do love binge watching sometimes, though! Four hours of Critical Role and I’m golden, but I can’t do that every day, day after day or I’d feel crappy about it.

Alexis: I agree. I try to get out as much as I can, though it’s so hot and miserable here that it’s hard to be outside as much as I like. I do end up watching quite a bit of TV sometimes, but I try to limit it.

What do you like to do other than read or write? Do you have any interesting hobbies?

Kellie Doherty: See these kinds of questions make me realize I want to get more hobbies! I read, I write, I do freelance editing (but that’s more of a professional gig than a hobby). It’s amazing how much time those things take up, so around eighty percent of what I do in my personal time is centered on the book-ish world. And that’s not a bad thing! I love books. But a well-rounded person has to have other passions, too, so perhaps I should find some more of mine. I really like water aerobics (and honestly, just swimming in general) and Zumba. I’ve had the benefit of traveling extensively when I was younger since my parents loved to go on grand adventures. Actually, you know what, most of my friends will tell you that I’m a bit of a homebody but I think I would like to travel more! (As time and circumstances and viruses allow.) I’d like to go to Scotland. My mom went there last year and said it was gorgeous. And going back to Japan would be fun!

What’s your favorite animal?

Kellie Doherty: Cats of all kinds, big or little! House cats are so finicky and graceful, sassy and confident. They know when to chase after hair-ties and when to laze in the sunshine. It’s hilarious when they run around at dusk and dawn, meowing like little banshees or chattering at birds. Big cats are gorgeous and powerful. Sleek. Super fast. I always visit them when I go to the zoo. I even got to hold a lion cub once at the state fair; it bit my arm! (But it had baby teeth so it didn’t hurt at all.)

Alexis: I love cats! I have two right now, and they are the sweetest, most affectionate kitties. They’ve actually been thrilled that we’re staying home to avoid Covid 19—one of our cats just stays on my husband’s lap while he’s working.

Do you like playing board games or role playing games like D&D? If so, which games do you like best?

Kellie Doherty: I play D&D with some friends of mine from college, and I also play board games with my family. I really like the character creation and collaborative storytelling from D&D. (Drow cleric who used to be a tiefling here—my girl was reincarnated.) It’s an exciting way to spend a few hours, literally in someone else’s shoes for a bit, and the campaign we’re on is super interesting. We’re playing 5e right now and it’s the only version I’ve ever tried. As for board games, my family really likes playing Pandemic—which is terribly ironic these days but we always win—and Catan is always a solid pick. We also enjoy Sushi Go if we want a short game, and we recently learned a new card game called Garbage that sparked our fancy.

Alexis: We actually liked playing Pandemic, too, though we’ve avoided it lately. I’ve only played Catan once, but I thought it was fun. We were playing Scythe for a while, too, partly because we could play it online with our friends.

Do you have pet(s)? If so, share a picture of your pet!

Kellie Doherty: Yes, I have cats! (No shocker there, right?) I’ve had them as pets ever since I was a young child. My first was an adorable little butterball named Snowball, white as milk and super shy but who liked being in the same space as me. He wasn’t terribly huggable, but I liked to say his aura wanted to touch my aura. I now have two gorgeous black cats—Raven and Cinder. Raven was a rescue cat from a local shelter, and Cinder was from a litter. They’re both super cuddly, lap-cats all the way.

Alexis: They are adorable, and Raven and Cinder might be the some of the best black cat names I’ve ever heard!

Raven and Cinder, Kellie Doherty’s adorable kitties!

Do you like Greek/Roman/Norse/Asian/African mythology or folklore? What’s your favorite myth?

Kellie Doherty: Asian mythology has always fascinated me! One of my top five places to visit when I was younger was Japan and in 2014 I finally got to go. I’ve always loved the Japanese culture and food and people, and because of that for my fantasy book Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties, I brought some Japanese mythology into it. For example, the yokai are a class of supernatural monsters, spirits, and demons and there was one in particular that caught my eye: the enenra. It’s a creature composed of smoke and darkness that lives in bonfires and can only be seen by the pure of heart. I used this idea to create the eneeraa, a small smoke creature with eyes and claws. It’s quite fun to draw inspiration from unique sources, and while I do have semi-traditional European dragons in my books, I wanted to incorporate different mythology, too!

Alexis: Interesting! I’ve never heard of an enenra, but it sounds like a very unique creature.

If you write scifi, what technology or innovations or scientific discoveries have inspired your work?

Kellie Doherty: I do write scifi—I have a scifi duology out right now, Finding Hekate and Losing Hold—but honestly, I tend to get my inspiration from other scifi works, like Star Trek, Firefly, Stargate, etc., rather than real-world instances. I do grab some inspiration from our tech, though, basic stuff like tablets and radios to more sophisticated holo-imaging. Oh, one thing I incorporated from our scientific discoveries is molecular gastronomy. I saw it on a cooking show—like where liquids can form semi-solid states—and I used that for planet-side water globules in Finding Hekate!

Alexis: You might be the first science fiction author I’ve interviewed to use molecular gastronomy as an inspiration!