Karen (KM) Stever Interview Published on: 06, May 2020

I was born in Ontario, Canada. I miss innocence. The news was of no concern to me. Adult drama was something we could run away from. I miss exploring the farm all day!

When I was three years old, my 4 1/2-year-old brother got to go to kindergarten and I wasn’t ready until the next year. My mother let me know that I was already reading and was totally ready to go. So, it really hurt me that I couldn’t get on the bus with my brother. At night, I would bring a huge stack of books to my mother and she would always laugh knowing there was no time to read all of them. As I got older, I had to learn Shakespeare in school and she would sit down and teach me about the life of Shakespeare and translate some of the crazy things that he was saying. I always loved books but I didn’t realize I wanted to write them until the last decade of my life.

I just love writing songs because you can condense your thoughts into a single instance. If the mood hits, I can get the idea down like a diary whereas when I am book-writing, I have to consider the entire book series. I haven’t been able to identify where the ideas come from. Sometimes, it’s in a dream other times it’s in nature. Most times it’s just my raw feelings coming out.

I love that it is an escape from my reality. My hope is that when people read KING JUGGERNAUT - NYC, they can shut off the drama in their life and be taken away from their reality. It is the same feeling I had when I was reading CS Lewis or Beatrix Potter.

I found the writing came to me really easily but formatting the book and the research I did wondering how I was going to release it, was very overwhelming. Everyone has a success story or regrets. There is a vast sea of opinions out there that often confuses things.

I really wanted the innocence of a child to be the prevailing hero. I made Ian non-verbal because there is too much talking and I think there can be a powerful message coming from somebody who doesn’t speak.

Probably because I wasn’t born then, getting accurate information from that era is always tainted by whoever is covering it from a journalistic standpoint. The next book is more challenging because it is set in Germany in that same year.

Pull my heartstrings, make me escape, let me have some fun, some disappointment, some adventure, some hope, and a whole lot of truth.

I purposely wrote a roadmap for each of the seven books in my series to be set in a different country so that I could explore how that era was for different cultures. My hope in the end is that culture will be the thing that bonds us all back together. Reading makes people more tolerant and relaxed.

I don’t agree that there is one way to market. It depends on where you live, who the audience is, what your message is, and what your personal goals are as an author. My advice would be to write something because you really mean it, as opposed to writing something because someone else wants it.

Put on the horse blinders and don’t worry what other people think of you. Be bold! Take risks! Don’t let relationships be a bigger priority than bettering yourself first.

I love the whole vibe of it being a simpler time where people said hello to one another. I wish I could bring that back to 2020.

I had a young girl in India who, while reading the book, said to her father, “I think Mita looks like me, maybe. I think this author has people who look like us.” It broke my heart to think that she was not included or represented in other reading materials from around the world.

I am writing the next book in the series, set in Berlin, Germany. My hope is this year if life quits distracting me!

I was really thrilled that people came together to vote for KING JUGGERNAUT - NYC to win the cover of the month contest! I made a lot of new friends through that time, thank you!