Kim Harrison - Career

Career

At first, Harrison tried her hand at writing traditional science fiction, but began writing contemporary fantasy after deciding to focus more on character development. She spent the better part of a decade struggling as an aspiring author before meeting her current agent at a writing convention. He then introduced her to Diana Gill, who became Harrison's editor. Together, they produced Dead Witch Walking, and her first book was published in paperback by HarperTorch in 2004. Since then, she has written eight more books in the Hollows series, also called the Rachel Morgan series, (most with titles punning off Clint Eastwood movies) and contributed to multiple anthologies, with prequels to the Hollows books, and one with a young adult story.

After the success of her first novel, Harrison was able to resign from her day job, devoting herself to writing full time. Her favorite author is Ray Bradbury. She references music as one of her strongest writing influences, providing song lists for several of her characters. In her spare time, she communicates with fans via her self-maintained website. She currently splits her time living in South Carolina and Michigan.

Harrison is a member of the Romance Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The first two Truth books were originally one book, which was split into two separate books for publishing. That the two are the same, and that Cook was Harrison, was disclosed in a May 2009 Locus magazine article.

"I'm glad it's out in the open, because it is hard to maintain these two separate identities, and remind your friends or family when you go out, 'I'm Kim today, so don't call me Dawn.' The division has served its purpose. I'm still going to be Kim, but now if somebody calls me Dawn I won't have to say 'Shut your mouth!'"