About Yurie Kiri:
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 inspires you to write?
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 just met.
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…
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
JRR Tolkien who wrote the "Rings" books is one of my favorites. I loved the stories and the fact that he invented every aspect of the stories including the several different languages used by the various groups of characters.
I'm reading "Fairy Tale" by Stephen King and I'm sure that I'm not the only one with that book on the pile. However like other Stephen King books, I'm halfway through and I may not finish it. Stephen King is like one of my other favorite authors, Mick Herron who tortures then kills off the characters I like. I've killed off a few characters in my books too but I can always bring them back as ghosts or spirit guides or even as new born babies however, Mick didn't give himself those options as far as I can tell. But, anything goes in a Stephen King book which is good in a bad way at times. I sometimes worry that my characters are getting into some kind of nasty spot or even sexual or gender trouble but then I think, "what would Stephen do?" and that worry goes away because anything goes in a Stephen King book… and as long as I don't stoop too low like Stephen does in my opinion, it's okay.
Tell us about your writing process.
I next wrote Moonlight Beach, but please don’t think that this strange story about a series of murders, organ donors, witchcraft and sex sprang from my feverish brain all on its own. I have a good imagination, but it’s not that good. The truth is, one night a few years back, I was sitting in Bolero’s, a Rancho California, patio-style Mexican Restaurant, nursing a margarita and waiting for an expensive Carne Asada taco plate when two women came in and sat down at a nearby outdoor table.
I don’t usually eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, but it was a slow night at Bolero’s and something about these women grabbed my attention and made me turn my head slightly so that I could hear them better. I think that the part of the women’s conversation that really made me sit up went something like this, “You were a close friend of hers, weren’t you? Tell me how she really died. No one deserved to be killed like what I heard…”
As you can imagine, I took my time with my food and margarita, all the while straining to hear and remember exactly what they said. Like I often do, I took a few notes on napkins and scraps of paper as discretely as possible. However, the women decided to move on, before the story was finished, since one of them had promised to meet another friend at Jake’s by the beach. I sadly watched them go but finished up and paid my bill as quickly as possible then I arranged my notes and filled in some of the blanks with what I could best remember.
After that I went to Jake’s looking for them but sadly I never found them again. The story that they told was not finished, however they had given me enough facts that I was able to fill in some of the remaining holes after some research. Although the story was based upon the overheard conversation plus my research, it also contains assumptions that I’ve been forced to make. In some areas, the truth has been well covered up. As one of the women said that night, “You can’t believe how much money was paid to keep the details out of the local news…”
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I live and work with my characters so of course I listen to and talk to them! 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… when I get inspired to make a change it's a meaningful change but then I'm weird…
What advice would you give other writers?
Listen, read and write… and be your own best editor.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
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 big 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! It felt like he hadn't read it at all. And that criticism made me sad, disappointed and rejected. So I wrote Moonlight Beach, with even more interesting 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 as well as entered several book festivals.
Moonlight Beach won (1st place) in the 2020 Hollywood Book Festival’s award for Genre Fiction and 3rd place in the Paranormal category for 2021 Incipere Awards. Moonlight Beach is about four friends who contact the spirit of a dead Native American woman and have to fight for their lives against the serial killer who had been chasing her.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I see more ebooks and self-publishing. I still buy print books but I'd rather read an ebook on my phone while tucked in bed or listen to an audible edition. Print books are too heavy and hard to read in dim light… while ebooks and audio books are so much more accessible.
What genres do you write?: paranormal mystery, shamanism, witchcraft and bisexual fiction. Science fiction, Post-Apocalyptic fiction.
What formats are your books in?: eBook, Print, Both eBook and Print, Audiobook
Website(s)
Yurie Kiri Home Page Link
Link To Yurie Kiri Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on BookBub
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
