I am Kevin Shortland, the author of the Kevin Wilks series on the global market.
Born in 1963, grew up with my family in local town where the stories originate from. They all start when Kevin goes to his new secondary school where things start to turn his world upside down. Based on friends and teachers and things that happened at this school leaves a road to travel on with the magical fantasy twist.
I have always written short stories in my youth but did nothing about them.
During Covid I came across my Bucket list which I wrote when I was 18 years old. It had one thing from many things I had completed but not this.
“Could I write a book and get it published.” Covid came along where I was at home for a while so started to investigate it. From there I started research on places that would be in the books with specific things happening back to the Medi-evil times. This was very useful for now doing a story board on the adventure.
I joined a writers’ forum to get more knowledge and experience to write the first book. When it was completed and edited, I sent it out to 4 main publishers who all wanted it.
Being a full-time worker the books are purely based on pleasure writing not as a job, although they have taken off in many countries since I wrote the first in the series of 6.
I get asked who my influencers were in writing this series, well, John Grisham and J.K Rowling. A vast difference in writers but both had the excitement and story lines that I loved. But, also, the fascinating stories told during my youth through grandparents, cousins and people I have met through my life.
As a child I was one that really did not believe anything told or written in books at school, which tended to get me into trouble for asking the teachers awkward questions on, and as they say disrupting the class. This is portrayed in the main character Kevin Wilks; he was and is me as a child growing up.
One last thing as an author I will say. To tell a good story is to get people involved in that story. There is a book in each and everyone no matter if it is fantasy, science fiction or other streams. The thing is, do you want to push it to the limits and see if it is enjoyable not to just you who is writing it, but to others to escape the meaningless daily chores we go through.
