K.A. Wiggins is a Vancouver-born Canadian speculative fiction author, speaker, and creative writing coach known for the award-winning, genre-bending YA Fantasy series Threads of Dreams. She writes difficult stories about difficult people being difficult.

Her short fiction has been published by Enchanted Conversation: A Fairytale Magazine, Frozen Wavelets by The Earthian Hivemind, Hungry Shadow Press, Fiction-Atlas Press, and Virgibooks (in translation). She currently leads the Children's Writers & Illustrators of British Columbia Society (CWILL BC) and teaches with the Creative Writing for Children Society (CWC).

LEARN MORE | Contact: [email protected]

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News & Updates

Celebrating Five Years

May 26, 2022

My debut novel, Blind the Eyes, dropped June 1, 2018. It’s been an absolute whirlwind of a ride ever since. Some things I’d hoped for never turned out; other things I’d never even dreamed of came out of the woodwork.

I’d planned to mark the occasion with something small—a new cover for Under, my subscriber-exclusive series prequel novella. Maybe a little giveaway.

But the redesign looked so awesome, I couldn’t help myself:

So, yeah, buckle up for a complete series relaunch:

  • A brand-new trilogy collection “box set” ebook drops June 1. (Get the collection here)
  • The new edition of Blind the Eyes launches the same day. (Get the new BTE edition here.)
  • Black the Tides is scheduled for July 6. (Preorder here.)
  • Burn the Skies will relaunch in August (Links coming soon.)
  • and the short fiction titles will hit stores throughout the fall (but newsletter subscribers can grab their copies now!) (Subscribe here.)

Thanks for your patience as I work through these updates—pages and links might be a little wonky in the transition (and the reason everything doesn’t drop June 1 is there’s a ton of work on the backend to get all the pieces in play.)

And check back throughout June 1 for more fun news drops!


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Surprise TOC Announcement

May 15, 2022

Check out this star-studded line up!

The results are in from the Writers of the Future awards (which is HUGE). Children of Earth got an honourable mention!

But that nice little accolade is overshadowed by the sudden and star-studded Table of Contents drop of It Was All A Dream: An Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right:

Art by Evangeline Gallagher

Why, yes, that is THE Wendy N. Wagner’s name just above mine! AND Gabino Iglesias to the left of hers! In fact, please, go ahead and just take a moment to absorb that fantastic lineup!

No release date yet because the publisher is commissioning interior artwork for the stories, but I’ll keep you posted.

This is really exciting for me because my twisted little story, Castoffs, has been one of my most popular AND most rejected. It features both a “deal with a devil” trope and a rather insider writers joke, which has made it a really hard sell.

But editors LOVE it. Here’s some of my favourite rejection notes:

  • “This is extravagantly bizarre, and I mean that as the highest compliment. The “deal with the devil” scenario has been done so often that it’s difficult to make that scenario seem new and imaginative, but you manage to do just that. The mixture of lavish, mouth-watering food descriptions with the macabre scenario and the pound of flesh is equal parts tantalizing and perverse—I love it. Best of luck getting this published.”

  • “It was funny – truly. Referring to the female character as dinner was hilarious (…) The journey of the demon putting out the candles is nice – especially because the candle names and scents themselves evoke an aura of middle-class blandness that becomes vivid for the reader. We also thought the bit about the publishing contract would resonate with many. The end was hilarious. Both characters ending up happy is rare and added much humour to the piece.”

  • “It’s fun in its own insane, visceral way.”

And from Hungry Shadow Press’s very own Brandon Applegate: “It’s exactly the kind of bonkers, inside-baseball, disgustingly great spin on a well worn trope I was looking for when I started putting this together.” (!!) Seriously, just absolutely glowing over here! And can’t wait to see what else made it in (28 stories total~)

So, look forward to this insane, funny, and somehow happy (?!) gross-out horror comedy and a truly awesome linup of other horror stories one day soon!


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Award Finalist

Mar 09, 2022

Update:

Original Post: Feb 28, 2022

So this just happened:


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Story Studio

Feb 24, 2022

It’s been another few whirlwind months in writing land and, uh, the rest of the world, too. Wild times!

Popping in today to say I’m excited to be leading a discussion on writing YA speculative (/fantasy) for the teen writers group of Story Studio tonight! I LOVE chatting with teen writers, and so rarely get the chance (so much programming is targeted for younger age groups, for some reason.)

In the spirit of transparency, ease of access, and making life easier for all of us, here are my slides/notes: Students, access slides/notes here!

If you’re not familiar with Story Studio, they’re a Victoria (BC)-based charity that provides free and low cost writing programming, resources, and contests for kids and teens across Canada. Check out their site for all the awesome details!

Also: I filmed a mini preview for TikTok if anyone’s interested in watching me be awkward on camera for three-ish minutes. :D


Blog Tour & NaNoWriMo

Oct 29, 2021

Just a quick heads-up on two new developments before I retreat into heavy-duty drafting mode!

1. Blog Tour

UPDATE

You can enter the giveaway on any of those blogs or by clicking here until 11:59 PM EST on Dec. 24, 2021.

And here come the blogs! I’ll link to the ones with custom content (guest blog or interview) below.

OP: Oct. 29

I’ve got a blog tour coming up for Blind the Eyes (as a result of winning the Page Turner Awards tour prize last year) so I’ll have a bunch of interviews and blogs for you to check out in late November to early December.

I also just wanted to offer, if there are any bloggers among my readers who want to get in on the fun (and take advantage of the free content), you can check out all the details and sign up here.

And there’ll be another chance to win a special edition hardcover coming as part of the tour!

2. #NaNoWriMo2021

UPDATE

So, uh, this went shockingly well? About 55k words in the first 11 days of the month over 45-50 hours and a messy zero draft is born! In unrelated news, why do my hands hurt???

OP: Oct. 29

If you’ve never stumbled across National Novel Writing Month before, it’s a now-international challenge to write a novel (or rather, 50,000 words of one) in the month of November. I tried it out way back in the dark days of 2020 and produced most of Burn the Skies, wrapping up the Threads of Dreams series.

This year I’ve got something a little different in mind . . .

More News

Events

Save the Date #1: WORD Vancouver Festival

Date: September 25, 2022

Time: TBC

Location: SFU Harbour Centre

Type: Panel

I’ll be moderating a panel on children’s publishing featuring CWILLers Claire Lordon, Sara Leach, Bryce Raffle & Danielle S. Marcotte at WORD Vancouver festival, time TBC. Stop by our table in the exhibitor’s hall for free bookmarks and enter our giveaway. And teachers/librians/home learners won’t want to miss Kari Rust’s WORD-sponsored free virtual school talk in the week leading up. More details to come here.

Save the Date #2: CWILL BC Presents: 2022 BC Books + Intro to Collaborating with Local Authors at BCTLA Fall Conference

Date: October 21-22, 2022

Time: TBC

Location: New Westminster Secondary School

Type: Multimedia Presentation & Workshop

I’ll be presenting a mixed-format multi-media presentation and workshop on behalf of CWILL BC highlighting our free resources for teachers and librarians, presenting...
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Urban Fantasy: Layering Another World Over Our Own Panel at Storycrafting Sessions: Fantasy

Date: June 4, 2022

Time: 12:30-1:30 PM EST (9:30-10:30 AM PST)

Location: virtual

Type: Panel + Q&A

Weeknight Writers is a social enterprise dedicated to creating accessible educational resources and events for fiction authors, run by the Business for Authors team.

In addition to their weekly Twitter chats on Thursday nights (at 7pm EST/4pm PST, #WeeknightWriters), they offer Storycrafting Sessions, one-day virtual conferences with panels exploring a specific aspect of writing, such as worldbuilding or story structure.

Join us for a special fantasy edition of Storycrafting Sessions on June 4, 2022.

I’ll be teaming up with four other awesome authors for the Urban Fantasy panel, “Layering Another World Over Our Own” from 12:30-1:30 pm EST (9:30-10:30 am PST). This panel will discuss techniques and tips for balancing worldbuilding and realism that you can apply to...
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Collaborating With Local Authors: A CWILL BC Presentation for BCLA YAACS YSI

Date: April 14, 2022

Time: 11 am-12 pm PST

Location: virtual

Type: presentation + Q&A

This is a ticketed event for the BC Library Association’s Young Adult and Children’s Services Youth Services Institute on behalf of CWILL BC and will discuss resources for, benefits of, and inspiration for library collaboration with local authors, particularly as applies to youth services.

BCLA members, nonmembers and students can register here. BCLA members benefit from a reduced rate.


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Past Events