Derek R. King Interview Published on: 15, May 2024

Music has played a significant part in my life for a long time. From listening to music, I began to write music of my own, and writing lyrics followed. Over time, those lyrics took a more poetic form, and poetry became my de facto writing medium. That is until I met my wife and writing partner, Julie Kusma. Together, we create multi-genre books, including educational books such as one of our most recent releases, ‘Our Dinosaurs: Discoveries, Distinctions, & More,’ which is part of Our Education series. And inspirational books like ‘Honey: Words to Heal and Mend’ and ‘Holoi’ ikepili: Words to Release and Cleanse’ are both based on the philosophies of Wabi Sabi and Ho’oponopono, respectively. One of our favorite genres to write is children’s books because they are fun to create and are informative and inspirational, like ‘Kintsugi: Healing Affirmations for Our World’ and ‘The Bee Book.’

Experiences, observations, and emotions influence my poetry. I enjoy creating poetry, like my book ‘Urban’, which focuses on the interrelationship between urban environments and nature. So often, in the hustle and bustle of city life, we can become oblivious to nature, which, at some level, exists all around us, and the soul-warming feelings it can provide. This book also contains photographs I’ve taken and artistically filtered. My most recent solo release, Forevermore, is the third in my Red Roses series. All romantic love poetry, which is dear to my heart and shall be forevermore.

In my collaborations with Julie, we have explored many themes in our poetry, including existentialism, Gaia, creation, inspiration, seasons, and love. Each is found in our ‘Lighter Half’ series of inspirational poetry, including, ‘Abracadabra,’ ‘Alpha,’ and our forthcoming series book, ‘Illusion.’ We enjoy writing love poetry books, too, and among them are ‘Love is Love,’ ‘Love on a Winter’s Night’ and our later release this year, ‘Autumn Splendor.’

I love Scotland, and so does Julie. We’ve made our home here. Aside from the fascinating history, the rivers, trees, farming, rolling fields, and hills around us bring an incredible amount of joy to us and often inspire what we create.

We especially love the seaside. This has inspired a number of our books to date, like ‘Buddha’s Garden: Allowing and Non-Attachment Haiku.’ Julie spotted a large rock whose features closely resembled Buddha, which set that book in motion. ‘With Love, the Universe’ and ‘Even, Only, Besides’ are also poetic inspirations from seaside. I took the photographs for these three books, and Julie created the arrangements for the photos.

The first volume, ‘In Sun and Shade,’ picks up where ‘Nature Boy’ left off to some extent. The second volume, due to release later in 2024, is ‘A New Year’s Frost.’ This poetry book is a collection of wintery vignettes around remembrances and themes of this time of the year.

I enjoyed contributing to those anthologies and websites, as well as the exposure they provided. Each piece was well received, and I appreciate the awareness they have generated.

I was reading books about the American Civil Rights movement, and Clyde Kennard was often mentioned as a civil rights hero, but only a couple of sentences or a paragraph at best were devoted to his story. Unlike many other civil rights heroes, there were no books about Clyde, and I was intrigued enough to want to find out more, which led to years of researching and, ultimately, writing my book, ‘The Life and Times of Clyde Kennard.’

Researching at times was frustrating, particularly establishing corroboration of certain details from the 1950s and early 1960s, a time before electronic records were kept. When I began, the more research I did, the more I became fascinated by that period of time. Especially earlier events, which I believe influenced the mindset (corroborated in my book), and I wanted to understand the various sides of the debate. So much so that I sometimes found it a challenge to stop researching and start writing. But I did, and I am glad I’ve written this book.

I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute to the ‘Winter Chills’ collection by S.J. Lomas, who put it together. Until that point, I hadn’t written a short story for many years. I found it interesting moving from a prominently poetic form to a short story format, yet my poetry collections, like a story, whether a short story or novel-length, take the reader on the same journey of a beginning to a middle to its ending, albeit with a higher word count. And, thinking about my first novel, which I’m currently writing, I can certainly appreciate the need for a well-developed plot, characters, and structure before committing to paper.

Typically, my poems just come to me, some needing more development than others. When I feel they are ready, or when I feel I must, I’ll commit them to paper. After that, of course, is editing—considering word choice, whether the words convey what I intended, line breaks, and punctuation. This is how I fine-tune my poetry.

Social Media platforms are a good way to raise awareness of what you’ve created. Some platforms transition over time in terms of popularity and changes to their algorithms, that can sometimes lead to frustration. But if remembered what each platform’s audience seeks, I can tailor my output (post/ads) accordingly to fulfill those needs.

It’s more about the projects we are working on together or my solo than needing a balance between my creative endeavors. Writing is at the core and the graphics and photography dovetail nicely with many of the projects Julie and I create. Although I haven’t written music or lyrics recently, music is a constant while we weave our creative magic. Plus, my guitar is always here for me to play when the desire arises.

I’m a fan of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Some other poets who had an early influence on me are Plath and Shelley. Song lyrics were something I gravitated towards, and there were certainly plenty of interesting lyrics from my early years during the mid-70s – 80s. Of course, later music influenced me, too.

Ultimately, I’d like readers, regardless of their location, to enjoy nature in poetic form, to be able to share with their partner thoughts of love and romance, to feel inspired, to generate feelings of wellbeing and contentment, and hopefully, sharing ways to enjoy this life we all have.

For me, it is reading positive words in reviews, like Literary Titan’s editorial review of ‘The Life and Times of Clyde Kennard’ with comments such as “Clyde Kennard’s story is one that should be told far and wide and given its rightful place alongside all other well-renowned heroes of the civil rights movement.” or, their review of the collaboration with Julie ‘The Poetry Mouse,’— “King and Kusma take the ordinary and transform it into breathtaking.” Along with these words, which are a beautiful endorsement of what we create, the actual creating is memorable too, like when we found the Buddha rock at seaside that led to us writing ‘Buddha’s Garden: Allowing and Non-Attachment Haiku’ and many other inspirational books we’ve co-created.

I don’t experience writer’s block, per se, but I do occasionally experience doubt when venturing into new territory, like writing my first fictional novel. Fortunately, I am blessed with a wife who helps me when I question myself.

I love the new genre-based Cover of the Month contest, as does Julie. We think it presents a more level playing field for comparison than the mixed genre previously offered.

AllAuthor’s website is very intuitive. The tools and templates are great; all easy to use and, with a subscription, are plentiful. And, having AllAuthor create and distribute promotional material on social media as well as sending new releases notifications are fantastic, beneficial features we both enjoy now and intend to continue to use.