My seven reveals that I would like my readers should know about me!
Author Kestral Gaian
1. My cat isn’t a pet, he’s my housemate
I live with a cat called Compton, although calling him a “pet” has never felt quite right. He’s more like a slightly furry flatmate who doesn’t pay rent and has very strong opinions about television.
He appears whenever I put on classic sci-fi. The moment the theme from The X-Files starts, he comes trotting into the room like he’s been summoned, hops up beside me, and stares at the screen with enormous concentration. I’m convinced he has a crush on David Duchovny. To be fair, don’t we all?
Writing can be a solitary life, so having a companion who insists on sitting beside you while aliens are investigated or conspiracies unravel feels oddly perfect. He reminds me that stories are meant to be shared, even if your audience happens to have whiskers.
2. I’ve lived many lives, but writing has always been the constant
If you look at my CV, it reads like the life of someone who couldn’t quite settle on one path. I’ve worked in technology. I’ve sung opera. I’ve supported surgical teams and found myself scrubbed in while brain surgery took place. I’ve worked with young people, stood on stages, written code, written songs, written scripts.
Through all of it, writing was the one thing that never left me.
Even when it wasn’t my job, it was always my compass. I wrote in notebooks when I was supposed to be doing something else. I wrote in margins, on train tickets, in the backs of programmes. Writing wasn’t something I decided to do one day. It was something that quietly followed me through every version of myself until eventually I realised it had been leading the way all along.
3. I left a stable career because I couldn’t ignore my conscience
There came a point in my life where I had to make a choice between my wallet and my gut feeling. I had a stable career in technology, a clear path, and the kind of security people are told to hold onto tightly.
But the more I worked, the more I realised that some of the things being built and normalised didn’t sit comfortably with me. Outside of work, I was writing stories about characters who stood up for what felt right, even when it was inconvenient. Eventually, I realised I had to do the same in my own life.
So I stepped away. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t glamorous, but it was honest.
except
4. I write almost everywhere, except at my desk
You might imagine a writer sitting at a beautiful desk, gazing thoughtfully out of a window while crafting perfect sentences. I own a desk. I even sit at it occasionally. But most of my writing happens anywhere else.
I’ve written while almost alone on a tiny island, listening to waves slap against the shore. I’ve written on the windswept edge of John O’Groats, wrapped in far too many layers and wondering why my fingers insist on freezing whenever inspiration strikes. I’ve written in coffee shops all over the world, tucked into corners with a hot drink growing cold beside me.
I like to go where my characters go, if I can. And if I find myself somewhere unexpected, chances are I’ll pull out a notebook and start writing while I’m there. Stories don’t really care about desks. They just care about being heard.
5. I write poetry to make sense of the world, and stories to live inside it
Poetry is how I process things. When life feels overwhelming, confusing, joyful, or strange, poetry gives me a way to slow down and understand what’s happening inside my own head.
Stories, on the other hand, are how I explore possibility. They let me step into other lives, other worlds, other outcomes. They allow me to imagine bravery before I feel it, kindness before I see it, hope before it arrives.
Both forms matter to me for different reasons. One helps me understand the world I’m in. The other helps me imagine the world that could be.
6. I think sandwiches are the greatest food invention the world has ever known
This is a hill I am fully prepared to defend, ideally while holding a sandwich. There is something deliciously perfect about them. Portable, adaptable, endlessly reliable. They’ve fuelled many long writing days and more than a few questionable life decisions.
Also, if storytelling is about structure and balance, then sandwiches are really just narrative engineering in bread form. You can put anything in a sandwich, but it has to make sense.
7. I believe stories help people feel less alone
If there is one thing I want my readers to know about me, it’s this: everything I write comes from a belief that stories can make people feel less alone.
As a young person, books showed me that there were other people in the world who felt the way I did. Later, working with young people myself, I saw how powerful it was when they encountered characters who felt real, complicated, imperfect, and brave in ways that made sense to them.
Stories don’t fix everything. They don’t solve grief or erase hardship. But they do something quietly extraordinary. They sit beside you. They say, “Someone else has felt this too.” They offer company in moments when you might otherwise feel isolated.
If my writing does anything at all, I hope it does that. I hope somewhere, someone reads one of my stories and feels seen, understood, or just a little less alone than they did before.
The Boy From Elsewhere by Author Kestral Gaian is out now EB (£9.49) PB (£12.99) ISBN: (EB) 9781915893116 (PB) 9781915893116 Publishedby Reconnecting Rainbows Press
Read our review HERE
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