Mae McKinnon

is one of those people who can’t stop writing, thinking about writing or dreaming about writing (or, more accurately, dreaming the stories that come part and parcel with the whole arrangement) any more than she’s capable of, say, breathing under the ocean or surviving being dunked in a hot lake of lava.

Having grown up on a steady diet of adventure stories, fairy tales and “gasps” even many of the classics, she’s read, and reads, almost anything (other than romance)- some stories so many times that the books are now held together by rubber bands.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a western, so called ‘children’s’ story (who decided that you suddenly got too old for something just because the numbers after your name changed anyway?) evocative essay, anthropomorphic indulgence or anything else. A good story is a good story. The trouble is, only one person can decide what is a good story for you, and that’s you.

The genre commonly known as ‘fact’ is also good, as is an interest in everything around you (even if it is through eyes that are seeing the then and there rather than the here and now – or, even more importantly, gazing into that all elusive landscape of ‘what might be’).  Not only does it help you grow (even if sometimes what is growing is your own confusion, especially if the book is about something as different as particle physics is from the care of the common orchid compared to what you’re used to) but you never know what you might take away from it and when writing science-fiction and fantasy you never know just what turns out to be handy knowledge – even if it’s only because you’ll KNOW you’re doing terrible things to the laws of physics in the next three paragraphs you’re writing.

Said inspiration for such tend to creep in from the darkness at around 1 or 2 AM in the morning, when sensible people should be asleep, but which seems to be THE time for a party if you’re a fictional character (or a muse).  It is quite the opportunist and also likes to ambush you when it knows you can’t write it down and you then scrabble around madly for something to scribble on. This is possibly the reason why she has such a hard time interpreting her old notes (thank you laptop, I do love you) … from last decade … year … week.

She’s also spent more time at university than she cares to admit (all those books), worked in fields ranging from archaeology to financial crime prevention (which have more in common than you’d think), but is most happy when she has time to read, write and share the resulting stories with others.

Publications

To date, Mae McKinnon has published several books, some short stories and tries desperately to type fast enough to keep up with the Muse’s and characters’ various shenanigans. Is this possible, you ask. No – not really. The little rascals are always off on future adventures and leave you to finish up the stories.

All novels (as well as many more currently in the process of being edited, written and dreamed up) are set in the same universe and may be read independently yet build upon each other.

 

World Setting

So far, all novels and some of the short stories (plus all the manuscript WIPs) share a common fictional universe. It began many, many years ago in our time and has grown organically and exponentially since then.