ME, IN A NUTSHELL

Caution: Life story ahead

When I was a child, what I wanted to be more than anything was a champion in a fantasy world. This was probably due to the fact that I grew up seeing the castles in Europe, travelling the world with my mother & father's amazing sense of adventure, and spending much of my time exploring the woods of Northern California that were outside my back door. Not to mention, that my parents sent my brother's and I to a Waldorf school, where they teach you to fence and do blacksmithing and encourage you to believe in things like elves and faeries (Awesome).

But then the big question came, since I couldn't tame dragons or be hired for quests of valor for a living, what was I going to do with my life?

The first time that I was asked the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?", I answered, "A writer, because then I can be anything that I want to". That quickly changed in the third grade, when I did my school play about Thor and his mighty hammer. I played the comedic role of the giants mother and I had this epiphany, it was silly to write the stories, when I could be in them!

I had such a lust to live in a fantasy world, that acting those roles, felt one step closer to living them than writing about it did. So I pursued an acting career. I did my best to fill my journey with as much adventure as possible along the way, organizing bungee jumping trips off bridges in the middle of the night, traveling to Italy for an acting for film course solo when I was only seventeen—running around the streets of Florence un-chaperoned. I studied various martial arts, mainly Kung Fu at that point, traveling to China to compete in their first ever International Wushu competition.

And then when I was eighteen, I left home for university in Australia, to study acting for screen and stage in a little place called Wagga Wagga. I travelled a lot while I was there, around that country and in others. I spent another stint in China studying more Kung Fu. I did Magic Tricks as a hobby and worked as a pirate for children's entertainment on the side. 

And then something funny happened, I grew up. It hit me one day like a freight train. I was a struggling actor who was working on the side as a bartender in an Irish pub in Sydney called, The Cock and Bull. I had just met my husband (An Australian sailor), and suddenly everything in my life changed. It was as if until that moment, I had been holding onto my childhood dreams so tightly, because I was scared that if I let them go, then I would lose who I was. But when I finally did, I was able to catch up to who I had become.

Suddenly, I didn't want to act anymore. I didn't want to spend another moment playing anyone but myself. I loved the world that was around me. I loved its mystery and diversity. I loved the beauty in its dark spaces and the exquisite poetry of humanities imperfection. I was thirsty to know more about it. I wanted to read about science and study our history. I got a tattoo. I married my husband and we had two beautiful children, and I finally realized that everything that I had loved about acting—the colorful characters, the action stories, the honesty and exploration into what it means to be human, and the imagination. All of  that I loved, because I am a writer.

Not just a, "Oh I think i'll write a book" writer, but a, "Holy Shit, I’m a writer" writer. Like an adopted child who is reunited with their real parents, and discovers who they are, which makes them feel like they finally have a real place in the world. Yeah, like that. 

So my first book might not be perfect, but I promise it's from the heart. I didn't write what’s hot right now, or for a certain age group, or genre—I wrote the story that I wanted to read. I created a world from the most intimate parts of my imagination, and characters pulled from inside myself. And I truly hope that you enjoy it, even if it's only half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thank you for reading!

K.L. Harris