Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have written memoir, poetry, mixed media, children’s stories, fantasy and online content but until this year I have not published. On November 11, 2023 (the 11th) year anniversary I started a Kickstarter campaign and raised the money to use a hybrid publisher self-published with Iguana Press.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my book is, “The High-Flying Adventures of Captain Grief: A Memoir About Laughing in the Face of Death.” #Grief is Messy…Own It! It was inspired by my writing coach who gifted me a free blog writing workshop in 2012 after the sudden death of my 35 year old wife. It left me a broken, angry, queer, 34 year old widow with a 1 and 1/2 year old son. Pardon my language but f#*&k. Good thing I was a writer.
One of my coach’s prompts was “invent a fictional character and blog with them.” Of course I chose a snotty, rude, ridiculous, unapologetic queer superhero to write with/pick a fight with for a year in the blog that inspired my memoir. She gave me a space to grief any way I saw fit.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I read aloud to dead people. And laugh a lot at my own jokes. In 2015 I bought a blue spandex suit, mask and a cape and played myself as well as Captain Grief in a theatrical production and I was dressing up and making YouTube Videos to market my book.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I never read comic books, but I idolized Wonder Woman. I loved Cat Woman, and Shira. Especially when their characters had roots in the divine feminine, Amazons, priestesses and female warriors of all types. Note: Kelly means Warrior! I loved fantasy, the “Dealing the Dragons” series by Patricia C. Wrede. I read C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien. Lately I fell in love with “Circe” by Madeline Miller, all the books by Australian classical music and Celtic history writer Juliet Marillier, and just recently been gobbling up books by gothic feminist writer C.J. Cooke “The Lighthouse Witches.”
What are you working on now?
Over the pandemic my neurodivergence kicked into high gear and I wrote a 600-page, fantasy novel called Burning Girls. It is about three difference women who all find themselves studying to become priestesses with The Sisters of the Moon, a female druidic order that worships the moon as their deity. It is a love triangle between them and when the fay mother of Krista threatens the order and kidnaps Caylee no one know how much they will have to change to survive the coming conflict. My reader was correct when she said my book was really two books, so I split it up and am currently editing the first and putting ideas down for the third!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Well I have reopened www.captaingrief.com where I now have current content. It has a link to my YouTube videos where occasionally I play Captain Grief or read from my memoir. There is also a link to my lively Facebook community.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Ask yourself why is this important? Why this story, why now, and what is the urgency behind it being told? This makes it authentic and will make it resinate with others.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Writing memoir is a brutal exercise in honesty, do your self care!
What are you reading now?
C.J. Cooke’s “A Haunting in the Arctic.”
What’s next for you as a writer?
Promote, promote, promote my memoir and perhaps consider it for The Fringe Festival? Who knows, Captain Grief will never run out of life.
What is your favorite book of all time?
The Hobbit.
Author Websites and Profiles
Kelly Wilk Website
Kelly Wilk Amazon Profile
Kelly Wilk’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile