Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Kira Kanani Seamon was born and raised in Hawaii. She attended the prestigious Punahou School as an award-winning honor student. A polymath, Kira is a gold medal/state winner in piano performance and a National and two-time Regional Dance Champion. She’s an award-winning photographer and has had her art accepted and sold in national and regional juried shows. She’s had over fifty newspaper cover stories about her art and is a fourteen-time grant recipient from cultural councils. She celebrated her first solo museum exhibit of her work in 2020. She was recently the inaugural artist-in-residence in Natick, Massachusetts. She received a personal letter from the Massachusetts Senate President and a Certificate of Recognition from the Massachusetts State Legislation in recognition of her grant from Framingham, Massachusetts. All of this culminated in her receiving the prestigious Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, for which she appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 2020.
She took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Machu Picchu, Peru with the Punahou Alumni Association and her travel tale about that expedition is published in the 2021 September/October edition of the Writers and Readers’ Magazine. Additionally, her Peru photography is the editorial feature in the 2021 fall edition of DRIFT Travel magazine. DRIFT Travel is an upscale travel and lifestyle magazine with each issue being emailed to 4+ million digital magazine readers worldwide. Additionally, DRIFT is also part of the PressReader magazine/newspaper digital platform that puts DRIFT in thousands of hotels, cruise ships, resorts and airlines around the world, opening the door to an additional 300 million users annually. Her horror short story, A Cereus Curse, is published in Terror Tract’s Hell-o-Ween 2021 anthology. Kira has never met a story from Greek mythology that she didn’t love and has kept a daily journal since her teens. Dead Cereus is her first novel and it won First Place in the Royal Dragonfly Book Awards in the romance category.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My book is entitled Dead Cereus, after the night-blooming cereus plant.
(Anecdote about my setting, Shellesby College greenhouse complex, which was inspired by the real-life Wellesley College greenhouse complex.)
I was born and raised in Hawaii amongst the plethora of tropical flowers and plants. It was indeed Paradise and I enjoyed the year-round summer weather. When I later moved to Boston, I eventually started to miss all the greenery and flowers during the harsh New England winters. This became especially pronounced in the winter of 2017. I had heard about the Wellesley College greenhouses from a friend and thought this might be a great time to check them out. I was enchanted when I stepped through their doors because here were the flowers of my youth growing heartily despite the bitter cold outside!
I found myself going there every day; it became the highlight of my day. I talked to master horticulturalist David Sommers, and he showed me the different Latin names of the plants and what they were commonly called. I took my dad with me every day, and he would fall asleep on the bench in what I called the “Tropical Forest Room” in the book. This bench was tucked away off the path, literally sitting amidst the tall Guadalupe palm and the giant white bird of paradise plant. The bench had very comfy cushions, and Dad would fall asleep beside me. Even though David and other staff were around, the place was often deserted, and sometimes I didn’t see another soul for the entire duration of my visit.
I remember thinking one day, This place would be a good setting for a mystery book—it’s so mysterious. About ten minutes later, with my dad snoring beside me all the while, the thought came to me: Do I need to be the one to write that mystery book about the greenhouses?
Well, once the thought took root, (pardon the botanical pun), there was no going back. Alas, the Wellesley College Greenhouses in that iteration are no more. As luck would have it, right before it was scheduled to be razed, their prize Queen of the Night night-blooming cereus plant was set to bloom! David invited me to their bloom party, and it was a true highlight of all my experiences there at the greenhouses.
That night, I couldn’t wait until David opened the greenhouses, and from the first moment I set foot inside, I was greeted by the most beautiful scent ever! Literally bouncing off the walls now with excitement, I yelped in pleasure when I saw them for the first time.. This was my first experience with the blossoms. They really do open rather quickly, almost like watching a time-lapse film in real- time. They are of the softest silken feel, and they look breathtaking. I left around 10:00 p.m., and David said that by the morning, they had totally wilted. I took photos of them, but I also purchased exquisite photos David took during his many years at the college.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I get very creative at night and would say I am a confirmed night owl. I like to keep notebooks around the house for those ideas that pop in my head.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I was extremely inspired by The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler. The 12 stages of the hero’s journey are not only great phases to have your main character go through, but I found my own life journey drew on many of those stages as well. I was particularly impressed and inspired by his personal story at the end of the book. He says, “trust the story”, and as an author, going through a long five-year journey to bring my book into being, this was the one thing I kept holding onto with both hands. I trusted the story and allowed it to lead me to all the different members of my team and in all the right time frames that I was meant to meet them.
What are you working on now?
Dead Cereus is a cozy mystery and I plan more adventures with Holly and William…speaking of “Hollium” (Holly + William), their love story will be told in a Dead Cereus romance series in 2022! I am very excited about that because I have always wondered how they met, myself! They will tell me their story and then I will write it for you-haha!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am a debut author, so I am just learning the ropes. I think a very large publicity campaign is good, and I am learning about what that entails right now.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
As a new author myself, I would let others know that this is most likely the hardest it will ever be…meaning, as a debut author, you are not only promoting your book, you are likely setting up a website, a newsletter, other infrastructure, that you will not have to do with the next book! Everything will already be in place, and you will have learned what works and didn’t work in terms of promotion with the first book.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
There are a couple of nuggets that I remind myself of frequently.
1) you get out of it what you put into it. I think this applies to writing the book, promoting the book, even your own personal growth as a human being, your relationships, literally everything!
2) I always like to joke to people that I got my best career advice from the Sound of Music!
Climb every mountain.
Ford every stream.
Follow every rainbow.
‘Til il you find your dream.
A dream that will need
All the love you can give,
Every day of your life,
For as long as you live.
…if you think about it…it’s true! 🙂
What are you reading now?
I am reading some of my new FB author friend’s works.
I am re-reading Memoirs of a Geisha.
I am re-reading some Anne Rice novels.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Children’s book!
And continuing the cozy mystery series and debuting the romance series.
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?
So many to choose from, it’s hard to pick a “desert island” book…
Oh gosh…Possibly The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, though I could list easily twenty that would classify as my favorite of all time!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Divergent Series
Hunger Games Series
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