Introduce yourself; who are you and what types of books do you write?
I’m K.R. Wilson, a Toronto novelist. I write literary fiction, often with a historical focus and/or with SF elements.
What are your books about?
My first book, An Idea About My Dead Uncle (which won the inaugural Guernica Prize) is about a young mixed-race composer who travels to China to try to track down what happened to his long-missing uncle in the 1970s.
My next two books—Call Me Stan: A Tragedy in Three Millennia and its sequel Stan On Guard: A Two-Part Invention—are tragical-comical-historical fiction from the perspective of a 3200-year-old Hittite immortal and, in the second book, the immortal Trojan princess who becomes his nemesis.
What was the inspiration behind writing your first book?
An Idea About My Dead Uncle drew on research I’d been doing into the history and culture of China in preparation for the adoption of our daughter and on the trip to China that followed, though the novel itself isn’t about international adoption. As its protagonist is a young composer, it also drew on my experience pursuing an undergraduate degree in music composition.
What did you learn while writing your second book?
How to expand my sandbox. Because it stretches across 3200 years of history, Call Me Stan is much longer and vastly wider in scope than Dead Uncle, with long historical sections in the Hittite Empire; during the aftermath of the Trojan war; in a first century BCE Buddhist community; with Jesus and his disciples; in a medieval monastery; during the Black Death in Germany and England; with composer Richard Wagner in mid-19th-century Zurich; and as a cabaret performer and sometime spy in post-war Berlin. And Stan On Guard expands that sandbox further, into Homeric Greece; the medieval Vatican; pagan Lithuania; Handel’s London; the decline of Nietzsche in a German asylum; the arts scenes in belle epoque Paris; the trenches of the Great War; and Toronto during that war.
What is the most rewarding part of being an author?
In terms of the writing itself, I love seeing a phrase or sentence or section come into shape in a satisfying way. In broader terms, I love finding a historical place and period that catches my fancy and drawing out a narrative that evokes that place and period while wearing the necessary research lightly.
What elements do you think make for a good story?
Strong and distinct characters. Narrative momentum. Enough description to make the reader feel like they’re there in the action without overloading them with details. Keeping the reader engaged yet on their toes, with callbacks that make them go ‘ah’. The occasional chuckle.
What is the hardest part of being an author for you?
The frustrating process of trying to attract eyeballs. Small press publishing has limited reach, and it’s always a struggle to get your work noticed. I don’t mean that I’m looking for windfall sales numbers. When you’re proud of the quality of the work, you want it to seen by people who’ll enjoy it.
What is your current writing project?
I’m working on a third and final book about Stan the immortal, tentatively called Stan By Me. I also have an SF/noir called Tendrils coming out from Palimpsest Press in 2027, and a sequel to that book under consideration for publication.
What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
Treat the first draft as just getting the clay on the table. The real creative work is what you do with it after that.
Where can readers discover more about you and your books?
My website is at krwilson.ca. I’m on Instagram (https://tinyurl.com/4wkpphzd), BlueSky (https://tinyurl.com/4d7scc8e) and Threads (https://tinyurl.com/2xrdsxrk) as @krwbooks.