The long drive weaving up a forested hill in southern Williamson County quickly feels as though it’s completely isolated from the world, even though it’s not far from the highway. Sunlit and full of wildlife, it seems the last place you’d find someone who lives in a universe where vampires and werewolves are the rule, not the exception. But of course, those creatures, along with a fantastic collection of gods and monsters, walk in the corridors of author Sherrilyn Kenyon’s mind, not in her backyard—at least as far as we know. So far, the scariest thing I’ve seen is a blue jay.
Georgia native Kenyon began writing in childhood, and not surprisingly, every bit of her invention has a fantastical edge to it. She comes by inspiration as easily as breathing. “I’ve got an idea fairy, I guess,” she laughs, sitting out on the gently shaded screened porch, looking at the bat boxes built into the trees along with bird feeders. “Anytime I disengage, there’s something that pops into my head, and I write about it.”
Write about it she does—there’s almost no point at which the author is disconnected from her computer keyboard. The first time I met her, about two years ago, she’d been to the hairdresser, and her tiny Netbook had been right there with her through the haircut. In spite of suffering from dyslexia, she’s astonishingly prolific. There’s little wonder one of her well-plotted new books hits the bestseller lists every few months—the sheer volume of writing her fertile mind produces is amazing.
Kenyon first made an impact in the early ‘90s with the science fiction/romance “League” series (beginning with Born of the Night in 1994—she says, of note, that the characters she created were really her childhood imaginary playmates, all grown up), and had great initial success in the mid-nineties, but then found herself unable to publish anything new round about 1998, when the “it” genre was self-depreciating humor-fueled chic lit. After the success of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones and Candace Bushnell’s Carrie Bradshaw, it seemed all aspiring writers thought they could do the same thing—and tried it.
Kenyon listened instead to her inner muse, and wrote what she’d always loved—horror, but with a goodly dose of erotic romance and a stylish edge involving Vivienne Westwood-esque corsets in the wardrobe and killer motorcycles on the streets—oh, and sometimes a stunned-but-plucky geek-girl thrown into the mix. Said girl nearly always captures the hero’s heart, usually by proving her mettle and kicking butt, rather than being a shrinking violet. Kenyon’s heroines aren’t looking for Mr. Big, often they aren’t looking at all, and they can take care of themselves—there’s more Buffy, less Carrie.
The author’s boundless imagination and refusal to fall into the genre game helped her, ironically, to become a founding definer of the genre that’s now become the absolute hottest thing in 21st century publishing—paranormal urban fantasy/romance—and guaranteed her a place atop the list of best in the genre, as well as a constant presence on the New York Times Best Seller list.
In the late ‘90s, during her brief publishing drought, as she made a pseudonym for herself as Kinley MacGregor, writing historical fiction, she made efforts to resurrect her “Dark-Hunters”—a group of ancient warrior figures who devote their quasi-immortal lives to killing soul-sucking vampires. She’d first toyed with them as a college student, and tried intermittently to sell their stories over the ensuing decade.
Persistence paid off, and the Dark-Hunters, now joined by Were-Hunters, Dream-Hunters and a host of other richly embroidered fantasy creations, built Kenyon a small empire and a reputation as dark mistress of the paranormal fantasy/romance genre. On top of all this, she’s also got Dark-Hunter manga out now (she admits a love of comic books dating back to childhood); an Arthurian series, The “Lords of Avalon”; and a young adult book series following one of her Dark-Hunter series characters, Nick, as a teenager in New Orleans.
If you ask her specifically about influences and inspirations, Kenyon quickly points out that she reads a lot, but that other authors don’t particular influence her. Rather, she traces her inspirations to imagination and childhood—“Let’s be honest, I was banned from demon novels in the third grade,” she laughs.
“I watched too much Star Trek as a child,” she says. “I turned the living room into an alien landscape.” (In this living room, the previously mentioned heroes of the League series showed up too). Her dyslexia meant she didn’t read in linear fashion, but absorbed things in pieces and images. Comic books won her attention because they were a genuine reflection of the way she perceived things when she read regular books.
She doesn’t much get into contemporary TV, either. “I’ve tried to watch the TV shows and movies that sort of relate to my genre, but I can’t. I can’t get into shows like Supernatural at all—weird, huh? The characters are maybe too much alike,” she says.
The actual supernatural now, the kind involving ghosts and hauntings? She’s down with that. Raised around a hellfire-and-brimstone Baptist minister grandfather, she also saw that grandfather dowse for water and practice Bibliomancy (asking for spiritual advice by randomly opening to a Bible verse)—talents that seemed at odds with his particular religious views. “Southerners are more open-minded than we’re sometimes given credit for,” she says with a wink. For the record, Kenyon converted to Catholicism some time ago, inspired by an older brother who married into that faith, and took her to mass as a child. “I’m respectful of everyone—I’d never knowingly disparage any belief. Religion, whatever it is, is your comfort—as long as it isn’t hurting anyone else, it’s fine. Hey, life is hard, you find what it’s going to take to get you through.”
Whatever one’s concept of the Divine, I suspect the area around Kenyon’s Williamson County cabin is a pretty good place to meditate on it and seek solace, probably why she chooses it as the location for much of her writing. “This place was a total ramshackle of a house when I bought it—we rebuilt it from stud,” she says. “But I knew it was perfect the minute I pulled into the driveway, it had snowed, and a bunch of crows flew over—I just knew.”
The cabin, lightly furnished, and decorated in pure Kenyon memorabilia ranging from Dark-Hunter dolls to theatrical costume pieces to drawings and photos sent in by fans (yes, she does keep them) has a ghost of its own. She’s not bothered by his company—she’s actually taken to calling him Bob. He fits in just fine with the deer, the raccoons, the wild turkeys, the chickens (out in the coop kept by Kenyon’s husband and the caretaker) and, of course, the bats.
We finish up our conversation with a meditation on the forthcoming DragonCon in Atlanta, the uber-gathering of science fiction, fantasy and horror fandom on Labor Day weekend, where Kenyon’s is celebrated by thousands of diehard fans desperate to know what’s coming next for the characters they’ve grown attached to—many of them dressed as characters from her books. Kenyon can’t wait. “It’s like home,” she says, smiling. “Other Cons, the romance writers conventions and all that, they’re fun—but at DragonCon, they really get me.”
Online Exclusive: Q & A with Sherrilyn Kenyon
New York Times Bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon knows her way around the world of vampires and werewolves, but in the real world, we want to know what’s on her iPod and where she buys her shoes—and all about the ghost in her cabin.
So, really, tell us about the chicken coop in your yard, will you? (Sherrilyn laughs) I like chickens, I just really had enough of them as a child, when we had to kill them and eat them. My husband, now, he really loves the chickens—but the agricultural lifestyle just isn’t for me, really. I also don’t like Hank—he’s our big rooster. I love his crowing, but he scares me. I got chased around once by a rooster at my grandma’s when I was a kid. But my husband, well, they’re his pets.
Any more regular pets? I’ve got a miniature Aussie Shepherd, and she herds the cats—I have two cats. One’s a cabin cat, she comes out here with me when I’m writing. The other one stays at home, she gets weirded out by Bob, the ghost.
What about Bob? Other than the cat’s reactions that come out of nowhere, all sorts of little things happen. Lights pop on and off for no reason. In one place, I’ve got a motion detector, but when they were turning on and off I went over and tried to figure out what could be triggering them and—nothing. It’s a big room, I tried hard to make it happen, but nothing. It was completely weird. I hear whispers on occasion too.
Of course, the wild life can be just as scary. I looked up once while I was writing in the master bedroom and this huge wild turkey had come up and was just staring in the window. It scared the crap out of me! But deer come right up to the house too, and I’ve got this mutant squirrel that somehow manages to get to the bird feeder no matter how or where we hang it. He’s like this ninja squirrel—he can get to anything. We’ve got raccoons, skunks, all the things you get in the woods. It’s wonderful.
What sort of music do you listen to, what’s on your iPod? Depends on the day of the week. Metal. Goth. Think Godsmack, Theory of a Dead Man, Nickelback, Black Flag, Drowning Pool. Oh, Bauhaus—Peter Murphy—I love Bauhaus, I named my first guitar for Daniel Ash. My brother writes songs inspired by my series, by the way. You can find the CD at our store on my Web site (sherrilynkenyon.com).
What about clothes and shopping? I hate to shop. Well, okay, I love boots, I have to admit that. Zappos.com is wonderful!
What’s your wardrobe, generally? I’m really a dress girl. I do buy jeans at the GAP when I need them ... Black, there’s lots of black in my wardrobe. I have to admit, I’m really partial to Cosplay, I love wigs, corsets, long skirts, dressing up generally—maybe it’s my love of anime—I always have. I’ve got a huge collection of pieces. I can get myself in trouble at the romance writers conventions.
What do you want people to know about you? That I’m really fun, that I’m not “weird.” I don’t know. I’m pretty open on that one. I’m me.
If you’re asking about my books, well, how about, they sort of defy genre conventions—there’s a lot of darkness, but plenty of humor too. Kind of like on MASH, which I always loved, there can be the darkest, most soul-wrenching moments, followed by something that just makes you laugh. There’s humor everywhere, and sometimes, regardless of circumstance, you just have to laugh. You know, the old “if you can’t laugh at a funeral ... ?”
Part of the healing process? Exactly. Oh—I know, how about, I have a very strong sense of justice. Maybe it’s the comic books when I was a kid, or too much of the King Arthur stuff. Might should not make right, and there should be order in chaos. I believe in karma, so the good guys in my world win in the end.