Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
For me Kindle publication satisfied a life long dream. At four-years-old, while playing ‘South Sea McGee’ with my sister, I promised to become a writer. But my youth was spent chasing adventures in many countries, hitch hiking Europe, traveling Africa. I was building a store house of memories to shape into fiction. I now have five books published on Kindle and in hard copy form.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My new book is an action/suspense novel. Touching Spirits is set in a Mayan village where I lived, and in the abandoned house I reclaimed from nature. On the Yucatan there is a legend of magical black creatures that live in the jungle, called Alux. Even today locals build small houses for them. Around the legend I created an exciting story about a cop who comes to the village to rebuild his life and to fight the men stalking him.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Well, for the three years I wrote the book my 18 year-old cat sat beside me, often reaching a paw up to let me know when it was time for petting.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Durrell, Faulkner, LeQuin, Karen Blixen (Isak Denisen), Tolstoy, Hemingway.
What are you working on now?
An exciting, knock-your-socks-off tale set in Cologne, Germany, where I had the pleasure of teaching English. It was quite amusing to be sleeping in a tent beside the Rhine, and wake up each morning and put on my clip on tie, and take the streetcar into the city center, and teach conservative German business men.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
It all comes down to the quality of the writing. If it is good and the writer rocks the reader’s world, then the reader will tell his/her friends. That is what I am after.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Butt glue, use lots of it to keep the backside in the chair and writing. Read as much as possible and take courses and join support groups. And get a couple of beta readers to go over your work prior to publication.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Writing is rewriting.
What are you reading now?
Don’t Leave Me, James Scott Bell
What’s next for you as a writer?
I want my writing to touch people, to make them laugh and cry. If I can make a reader not want to finish one of my books, to think of it as an old friend, then I have obtained my goals. What could be better?
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Oh boy! The Avignon Quintet, The Sound and the Fury, and when I finished those I’d have to start swimming to find more reading material.
Author Websites and Profiles
Kevin R. Hill Website
Kevin R. Hill Amazon Profile