Introducing Adrik Kemp, Author of "Of Gods and Men"

Edit: I am interrupting this regularly scheduled Coming Together: Among the Stars guest writer post to bring you a few quick pieces of information.
First, Blissemas has started! Yay!


If you remember from last year and year before last, Blissemas is a 22 day smut advent calendar with free reads and recipes, teases and trailers, and at the end, there's a Kindle Paperwhite up for grabs, loaded with smut. Post a comment on today's entry (link above) to get in the chance to win, and keep coming back...

My advent day is the 20th and I'll be doing my own little giveaway here on the blog, so, comment HERE every day to get into that contest (multiple comments count multiple times; limit one comment per day. I promise, I will be here EVERY single day... will you?)

Also, Coming Together: For the Holidays came out today. Yay! My story, Holiday Hours, which was originally published by Hot Ink, in the MILF & Cookies anthology, (out of print) makes a reappearance. So if you didn't get a chance to read it then, now's a good time to check it out and help disadvantaged kids have a better holiday!

Now that I've completely derailed poor Adrik here, allow me to get back to him. Adrik's story, Of Gods and Men, was the first story I read for this collection and I knew I had to have it. Sexy, interesting, and diverse, Of Gods and Men is decidedly one of my favorites... 

On that note, let me introduce you to Adrik Kemp....

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I love my characters, the good and sexy and bad and naughty ones. I wrote 'Of Gods and Men' because of a life-long obsession with religion and sex and a surety that the two are connected. I have written a lot of erotica as well as less erotic science fiction in short stories and novels.

I am honoured to be included among many incredible authors for this particular anthology, 'Among the Stars'. I have been waiting for a theme such as this to come up for some time, and am pleased it can be to benefit a worthwhile charity as well as to tempt and torture readers with tales of lust and smut.

Tell us three things about you that are interesting.

I have four 'jobs' that I love. Editor and social media manager for Tabula Rasa, a new, online publisher dedicated to providing (mostly) Australian short fiction, novels and non-fiction to the ever-eager audience of the Internet. Submissions manager for Aurealis magazine, a not so new science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine that has been running in Australia for many years and is responsible for spawning the Aurealis Awards. This year, I am also a judge in these awards in the horror category. And tutor with the Sydney Story Factory, working with kids and teens on how to write creatively. Sadly I do not get paid for doing any of this, but do it for love.

I spent one year in Japan, not unusual, I know, but it made me the person I am today and filled me with endless heartache when it came time to leave. I will always love Japan with all of myself, because it was there that I met my best friends, where I finished my first novel, where I learned all about myself (as much as you can in your mid twenties) and where I met my lovely, wonderful, incredible boyfriend.

I tweet and take a lot of photos, so come and find me on Instagram or Twitter under @shadowadrik. I certainly think I'm interesting, but I guess you'll make your own decision.

How much of your life and the people you know end up in your work?

I wouldn't so much say that people I know end up there, but I certainly invent stories and backgrounds for people I see around the place and place them squarely in my work. It's narcissistic but I've come to accept that on some level, every character has a little of me in them, regardless of who they are. Personally, I wouldn't be able to write them if this wasn't the case. And it wouldn't be as much fun.

What's the worst thing that ever happened to you that you've incorporated into a story?

I don't want to say, but I do want to say that every bad thing that's ever happened to me has ended up in some way in one of my stories. Sometimes verbatim, but sometimes used as a jumping board for a much deeper, different pain. I'm a believer in writing what you know and using sense memory to trigger compassion between myself, the characters and readers. I've never traveled to space or had sex with a four-armed alien, but I've traveled alone and I've had sex, so a little tweaking and we're there. We are nothing without our imaginations.

What's your writing routine?

Plan. Excessively plan. I am one of those people who adores Excel. And I plot my works, my characters, everything in it. I know I should get on board with a program specifically built for this purpose, but Excel is my writing blankie. Aside from this, finding deadlines to write to, calls for submissions and NaNoWriMo are two I work with currently.

What writers or novels do you consider “must reads”?

Books that changed my life are countless but some standouts have been Dune by Frank Herbert, Imajica by Clive Barker, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and anything by China Mieville (the man is a genius). I'm also partial to a little comic reading, and while I talk about X-men (my favourite run was the short-lived Nyx and of course Grant Morrison's run) what I really love are comics and all the gorgeous characters created by Patrick Fillion. But if you're going to read anything, let it be Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Spectacular.