5 Questions with Elise Kova
After falling in love with Deal with the Elf King, I couldn’t wait to checkout Elise Kova’s A Trial of Sorcerers. While trying to decide which world to jump into next we caught up with the USA Today bestselling author to ask her some questions!
1. Tell us your "writer origin story," what made you take the leap from working for a tech company to writing full time? Did you publish any of your books before you made the full time change?
I suppose if it's my "origin story" I should go all the way back...
I wrote my first novella, a high fantasy, in sixth grade. It was part of a school project to write a “long form” story. I was determined to write a chapter book and so that’s what I did. Needless to say, I’ve loved writing and storytelling for a long time. Reading and books have always been a big part of who I am, so even if I wasn’t dreaming of being an author at points in my life, I’ve always held a deep love for the art of storytelling.
Thus, when I began writing AIR AWAKENS in 2012-2013, it started as a hobby.
For a long time, I enjoyed Fanfiction and wanted to write in an environment as fun and as interactive as the Fanfiction websites I frequented. I wasn’t considering publication and just wanted to have a good time writing. That search for community in writing led me to Fictionpress. It was a great site to help keep me on track by making it a habit of posting a chapter every day for my readers. Additionally, those readers became what were effectively my first betas. I had found the community I needed and finished the Air Awakens series.
I queried AIR AWAKENS in 2014 after substantial edits, but did not receive any offers of representation from agents (as is the case for many debut authors). Rather than trunking my work and waiting to query or publish it later I decided that self publishing was a viable option for getting my story out there and helping build my career as an author.
AIR AWAKENS was ultimately published in August of 2015. At that time I was working at a large tech company and I expected it to be a side hustle. But I was blown away from the reception. When FIRE FALLING was released 3 months later, I knew I had a special opportunity on my hands and I had to take a chance. I could always find another corporate job. But pursuing a career as an author? Opportunities like that don't come every day!
I quit my job in January of 2016 to become a full time author and have never looked back. Fortunately, this author business has panned out for me.
2. You have 7 series out! The Air Awakens, Vortex Chronicles, Golden Guard, Loom Saga, Wish Quartet, Married to Magic and A Trial of Sorcerers (deep breath). I'm not sure if this is fair to ask but do you have a favorite? Check out this link on Elise's website for more information on reading orders getting into her work.
It's totally an unfair question! But I'll forgive you and do my best to answer... I love each of my series for different reasons.
Air Awakens will always hold a special place in my heart as my debut, even if I can see its flaws now.
The Loom Saga really stretched me as an author to try and write something different and unique, I learned a lot in that process about planning and technical elements of story.
Vortex Chronicles pushed me further in different ways, really digging into deep, interconnected worlds and their complexities.
Married to Magic was a delight to write and an escape during the hard year that was 2020.
My most recent series, A Trial of Sorcerers felt like a return to everything I loved about writing YA, while bringing all that I have learned along the way.
So every series is different and unique, and taught me something I couldn't have learned without sitting down to write them.
3. A Deal with the Elf King is a stand alone, fantasy romance. It sits right on the cusp of older YA and adult. There is some steam in the book. It's set in the Married to Magic universe. Married to Magic is a universe you said you hope to write other stand alones in. These books can be read in any order and are each a complete story with no over-arching plotlines between them. How did you decide to approach this world based/standalone story project?
After writing a lot of epic, very complex series (looking at the Loom Saga and Vortex Chronicles specifically) I was honestly very tired. Don't get me wrong, I love series. But they take a lot to write. And at the time I was sitting down to write A DEAL WITH THE ELF KING I, like the rest of the world, was thrown into quarantine.
I wanted something that was lighter, fun, easy to read and would perhaps be as much of an escape for people to read as it was for me to write. A stand alone, fantasy romance just fit the bill.
But even though I didn't want to write a series with a big overarching story, I love writing stories with little tie-ins here and there. So the idea of interconnected stand alones was very appealing for that reason.
4. Speaking of series, you recently released the first A Trial of Sorcerers, the first in a new series of the same name. What was the hardest scene to write in that book (if you can share without spoilers) and why?
I think people would think the obvious answer is some of the emotional gut punches that happen throughout the book, but those were honestly not too challenging for me to write. I think the scene that I spent the most time on was chapter 13.
A bit of (spoiler free) context...
In A TRIAL OF SORCERERS, Eira decides to go against her family's wishes and compete for a spot as one of the Empire's four sorcerer champions. To become one of the Empire's champions, she has to compete in a number of trials - hence the title. The second trial, which appears in chapter 13, is a magical obstacle course. I spent a lot of time in this scene because a lot is happening:
There's the design of the course, to make it unique, challenging, and interesting. There's the blocking of Eira's movement throughout the course and making sure it's engaging to read and doesn't sound like a "shopping list" of "She did this, then that, then that." Finally, there's some critical emotional subtext that plays out through mere looks and thoughts.
That chapter did a lot of heavy lifting narratively and I spent a bunch of time making sure it was just right.
5. On your website Q&A you talk about authors who have influenced you, do you have a favorite author/book outside of the fantasy genre?
When I'm not reading fantasy I enjoy reading "boring" non-fiction books, such as books on writing craft, business and entrepreneurship, or philosophy.
I've always enjoyed reading the works of famous philosophers, even if I don't agree with them, as it gives me what I find to be deep insight into the inner workings of another's mind (a critical skill for me as an author). On my shelf I have the works of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, to name a few.
On the fiction side of things, I think the last non fantasy fiction book I read was Dan Brown's ORIGIN. I do tend to enjoy his work.
Elise Kova is a USA Today bestselling author. In her past lives, she has graduated from an MBA program, lived in Japan for a bit, and worked for a Fortune 500 technology company. However, she finds herself much happier in her current reincarnation as full-time author. When not writing, she can usually be found playing video games, drawing, watching anime, or talking with readers on social media. She's happy to call Florida her home, but is always looking forward to her next trip.
Book Reviews:
Married to Magic Series
The Loom Saga
The Air Awakens World:
The Air Awakens
A Trial of Sorcerers
