Author Interview: Yurie Kiri

About the author:
Yurie Kiri, born in a trailer in rural America, studied Mathematics and languages and speaks Japanese, English, French and has also studied Chinese, Arabic and Spanish as well as a smattering of other languages such as Korean and Russian along with binary, octal and hexadecimal machine language because if you really want to get to know someone you need to speak their language no matter if they’re machine or human. Yurie lived and worked in Asia for decades before coming back to America where Yurie went on an extensive backroad journey across the US and Canada from the rough Mexican border towns to the icy cold town of Yellowknife in Canada’s NWT where you need to cross a frozen lake to get into town in the winter. Yurie also sailed (single-handed) from Mexico to the Canadian border, retracing a well-traveled road journey by sea in a small, live aboard sailboat. Yurie has been traveling and gathering story ideas from Asia for the Game Series which covers Japan and other Asian countries and North America for the Murder and Mystery Series which covers the American Southwest.

What do you want potential readers to know about you?

Yurie Kiri is a shy, secretive person who used to live on a boat, sailing between various ports in the Pacific Ocean. Yurie lived on the boat until some crazy mega-yacht got loose and went on a full throttle rampage through the marina squashing everything it hit. Alas, sailing was one of Yurie's passions, now writing and photography are the main passions in Yurie Kiri’s life along with cats of course like the enhanced, intelligent cats featured in New York Stories…

What inspires you to write romantic fiction?
Real life – all of my stories come from life…

My first book or rather the first book I planned to publish; Tokyo Games was written as a kind of revenge story about the people who unjustly kicked me out of a good job. So instead of moping around feeling sorry for myself I used my new, free time to construct a good story about their destruction. I changed everyone's name as well as some of the circumstances but that book (like all of my books) are full of real people, people I know and new people I've met.

Tell us about how you write.
I mix those real life stories with fiction however… for example in Tokyo Games, after witnessing their friend, Melinda being murdered by a leading politician Hanako talks Keith into swapping bodies with her. Hanako, a brilliant scientist developed the technology that enabled her to get into Keith's body, so that she'd be big and strong enough to defeat her enemies… Keith must then learn how to deal with all aspects of feminine life including sex with the man he used to be…

Do you listen to or talk to to your characters?
I've read and re-read my own stories over and over, probably close to a hundred times and think about them (my characters) all the time like they're real people… and when I get inspired to make a change it's a meaningful change but then I'm weird…

What advice would you give other romance writers?
Listen, read and write… and be your own best editor and use your own experiences.

How did you decide how to publish your books?
Sheer desperation. After writing my first book, Tokyo Games I queried 100s of agents and gave it to friends to read one of whom gave it to a certain newspaper. The newspaper guy hated it however – "too much sex," he said. "Why are your characters having sex all the time?" But that wasn't true!
And that criticism made me sad, disappointed and rejected. So I wrote Moonlight Beach, with even more sexual situations. I still got 100s of agent rejections but instead of just giving up I posted the books on Amazon using their Kindle direct publishing app…

What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think ebooks are wonderful! I love reading books on my phone and I hope everyone else does too. I still like printed books but they're kind of too heavy to read in bed, late at night all wrapped up in warm blankets…

Which romance sub-genere(s) fit your stories best?
bisexual, fantasy, mystery and witchcraft mixed in with wild sci-fi

My books are available in the following formats:
eBook, Print