Interview With Author Tyler Kania
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am 32 years old and consider myself a dilletante – a dabbler. I am a rugby player, a coach, a cybersecurity salesman, a stonemason, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, a painter, and a writer, from Eastern Connecticut. I struggle with Bipolar I Disorder, and I have ruptured both of my patellar tendons playing rugby (A very rare injury with a commonality rate of once in 147,000 human years.) Can you believe I’ve done it twice? I have written one book and plan to write more.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My book is called “The Maniac with No Knees”. It is a memoir about my life journey with bipolar. I was institutionalized in 2022 at a mental health hospital after multiple suicide attempts. I was inspired by many people that I met there, who were far less fortunate than myself. When I was released, I was able to slowly get my life back together – landing a job at a top cybersecurity firm and working hard to accomplish my dreams on the rugby field. In April, I ruptured my patellar tendon for the second time, went manic and just started typing out my life story and publishing it to Instagram.
I didn’t intend to write a book, but my mania gave me the confidence to tell my story. I wrote this in dedication to all of the outcasts of my affliction posting up in a place with less liberty than jail – the mental health hospitals for the insane. I wrote this because it is my responsibility as a bipolar with resources and education to speak up for a downtrodden group in society. I wrote this because mental illness is taboo.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write lots of short essays on the note’s app on my phone and I publish straight to Instagram. I’ll write while I am riding the bike at the gym or sitting in my car. My followers love the content!
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Sylvia Plath- The Bell Jar taught me how beautiful our illness can be. How words of suicidal thoughts can make the hair stick up on your arm. She taught me the dichotomy of bipolar, how you can be an overachiever who loves life one day, and purposely overdose on medication in the stairwell of your basement the next.
Jack Kerouac – On the Road was almost like looking into a mirror and seeing myself. People say I look like him, people say I write stream of consciousness prose like him, people say that my cross-country adventures with my best friend is exactly like his travels with Dean Moriarty. He showed me how fun mania can be.
What are you working on now?
Well, right now I am promoting my book and trying to rehab my knee so that I can get back on the rugby field. I also have a couple early-stage projects like a book of short stories centered around other people who suffer from mental illness, as well as a historical fiction about the Silver Rush in Nevada in the 1860’s.
My last project is one I am most proud of. I am trying to re-engineer how we approach obituaries. I am trying to write something much more thorough than what we are used to. Something that tells the life story of a deceased family member so that grandchildren and ancestors will know about their journey. The world’s greatest stories die with the passing of our elders, and I am trying to change that. I hope to partner with funeral homes to offer a premium option to families of the deceased. I am working on my first one which will be used as a sample to provide funeral homes.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Please check out my website tylerkania.com
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write. Write about the horrors and the beauty of life. Write each day and read each night. Improve your elucidation and your vocabulary. Share your work, even if it is embarrassing. Write about your vulnerabilities unabashedly. Write fiction, non-fiction, short-essays, poems, anything. You only get better by writing each and every day.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Live your life without any concern for how others may perceive you. Open up and share who you are, knowing that the other person has just as many defects as you do. Whatever it is that brings you confidence, lean into it, as confidence is the elixir that inspires us to act.
What are you reading now?
As I said, I am doing research on the Silver Rush of the 1860’s, so I’m actually reading three books on that right now. There is Mark Twain’s “Roughing it”, which is an autobiographical piece on his time there as a newspaper reporter for the Territorial Enterprise. There is “The History of the Comstock Lode” by Grant H. Smith, and lastly there is “The California Gold Rush after 1849 (Part One) The Comstock Lode (Part Two), by Frank Lewis.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Hopefully a successful launch of my book. I am not nervous about the reception of my book. I worked so hard on it and my story is such a good one that I know that if people pick it up, they will enjoy it. I am nervous that my book doesn’t get amplified enough to find it’s readers.
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?
I would bring three James Michener books because they are epics. They are over 1,000 pages and very interesting. Hopefully by the time I read the last one, I’ll have been rescued.
Author Websites and Profiles
Tyler Kania’s Social Media Links
Author Interview Series
To discover a new author, check out our Featured Authors page. We have some of the best authors around. They are just waiting for you to discover them. If you enjoyed this writer’s interview feel free to share it using the buttons below. Sharing is caring!
If you are an author and want to be interviewed just fill out out Author Interview page. After submitting we will send it out in our newsletters and social media channels that are filled with readers looking to discover new books to read.
If you are looking for a new book to read check out our Featured Books Page.