Kate Elliott has been publishing for over 30 years with a particular focus in immersive world building and epic stories of adventure & transformative cultural change.
Her most recent novels Unconquerable Sun and its sequel Furious Heaven translate a gender swapped Alexander the Great into space.
She is best known for her seven volume (and complete!) ‘Crown of Stars’ epic fantasy series set in a landscape reminiscent of early medieval Europe, the Afro-Celtic post-Roman alt-history fantasy with lawyer dinosaurs Cold Magic (the Spiritwalker Trilogy), and Young Adult fantasy trilogy ‘Court of Fives’, aka Little Women meet American Ninja Warrior in a setting inspired by Ptolematic Egypt.
In addition to long epic series, she’s also recently published two novellas. Contemporary portal fantasy ‘The Keeper’s Six’ features a savvy, badass grandmother who has to use her all her wits to rescue her kidnapped adult son from a dragon boss. ‘Servant Mage’ tells the story of a young woman who was indentured by the very revolution meant to liberate her.
Her other works include more epic fantasy (the Crossroads Trilogy, Black Wolves), science fiction (the Novels of the Jaran and the Highroad Trilogy), as well as two novellas set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse.
Her novels have been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Norton, and Locus Awards. Black Wolves won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Epic Fantasy 2015. She lives in Hawaii where she paddles outrigger canoes and spoils her schnauzer.
If you’re wondering “Where should I start with your novels,” here’s an answer http://www.imakeupworlds.com/index.php/2015/02/where-should-i-start-with-your-novels/ (boy band style).
Which trope of science fiction (phasers, transporters, time machines, much more) would you like to see put into our own reality? And how would you use it in a mundane way?
The transporter is my most useful sf trope. I would use a small personal transportor to go have dinner with family and friends on the weekend, no matter where they lived in the world. Or they could come visit me. Or if a family member or friend (who lives far away) needed some help with a project, with caretaking, or just someone to come babysit for four hours while they went out on an errand or took the afternoon off, a transporter would make all of these connections possible and also, in the a larger and more general social sense, for people to be less isolated.
If you had to choose between being a mermaid or a dragon, which would you pick and why?
My first thought was obviously a dragon: big powerful flyer. But I really love the ocean, so mermaid would also be cool. How about a merdragon, who can switch from ocean-going to flying?
If you were stranded on a deserted planet with only one book to read, but it turned out to be one of your own, how would you feel?
I would feel cheated! The whole point of being stranded on a deserted planet with only one book to read is for that book to either be a survival manual with all the information you need to survive, or (assuming survival options are plentiful already) some lengthy tome stuffed full of interesting information or narrative that you haven’t read yet, possibly something you meant to read but which you always kept putting off. But if it had to be one of my own, I would argue that a series of connected novels counts as a single book and would hope for the seven volume Crown of Stars sequence, mostly because it is so multi-stranded and complicated, and I wrote it so long ago, that it might almost feel as if I were reading it for the first time.
If you could have any fictional pet as a companion, what would it be and why?
My miniature schnauzer Finn (short for Fingolfin) practically qualifies as a fictional pet because he is so good natured, funny, and sweet, so I would choose him again.
If you were a character in a fantasy RPG, what character class and abilities would you have and how would you level up?
I’d be a Ranger class, with necromantic abilities that would allow me to suck the life force out of creatures I have to fight. This skill, and my enhanced tracking abilities, would allow me to level up through winning battles, discovering treasure, and sniffing out traps, secret hideaways, special creatures, and portals to both dangerous and valuable places.
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A comprehensive bibliography (list only, no descriptions) can be found here: https://imakeupworlds.com/index.php/bibliography/
My main web page kateelliott.com had to be moved off its old server some months ago, and for the moment it redirects to https://imakeupworlds.com/ At the moment the site is fairly barebones. I will flesh it out as I have time. Thanks for your patience.
I have a newsletter on Buttondown, which is the best way to stay up to date on my new releases and events: https://newsletter.imakeupworlds.com/
My Patreon features dozens of posts about writing craft and worldbuilding as well as portals into my current work in progress and general thoughts about creativity and writing: https://www.patreon.com/KateElliott
I can be found on Bluesky at kateelliottsff.bsky.social . I also have a footprint on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, and Mastodon, but I rarely go to those spaces as I’m focusing on writing rather than social media.
A search will find plenty of online book events and interviews with me (and other excellent writers).
Recordings from my SFWA-sponsored, long running interview series Narrative Worlds (a deep dive conversation with another writer or artist, including luminaries like N.K. Jemisin, Malinda Lo, Martha Wells, Charlie Jane Anders, and Shannon Chakraborty) can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@SFWA/search?query=Narrative%20Worlds
There are four seasons of conversations here with fantastic people on a variety of topics. Check it out.
I’m currently working on the third book in the Sun Chronicles. Work coming in 2025 hasn’t been publicly announced yet (although my Patreon members know what it is).
My next published volume will be THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD BEGINS IN ICE: Stories and Essays from the Cold Magic Universe. This collection of standalone short fiction from the universe of the Cold Magic books will include fantastic illustrations by a number of excellent artists. It will be published by Fairwood Press in Fall 2024. https://fairwoodpress.com/index.html#/
Featured image author photo credit April Quintanilla-
