kaven hirning: author, skit creator & dungeon master

Meet Kaven...

For those who don’t know, Kaven wears many hats in the bookish community. From author to skit creator, dungeon master, and more. We first met Kaven in August 2024 at the FaeBall when we were karaokeing with her. Since then, we have been following her skits and reading her works. Getting to interview her was so much fun. There were talks of her books, the bookish community, and of course, lots of crack theories and a whole lot of tangents.

“The bookish community has also really saved publishing.”

Kicking off strong, “How did you get into the bookish community?”

Kaven: I’m in my 30s now, when COVID rolled around, I asked myself, like so many did, “what am I going to do?“. I got on TikTok when it was really just a bunch of young kids dancing, really before BookTok.

I picked up ACOTAR, posted one video, I woke up to 400 likes and thought, wow! I’m a celebrity now!”

That was it, it wasn’t so much about the books, but about the community that I started to build.

This interview will be filled with spoilers, lots of laughs, and condensing almost 2 hours of chatting is not easy.

What type of reader are you?

Kaven: I oscillate between reading 7 books a week and 3 books a month. I’m a total mood reader.

Favorite genre to read and why?

Kaven: Again, hate to say it, but it’s all about my mood, but mostly fantasy high-stakes, but there are definitely times when all I want is a little kissing winks.

Did you always want to be an author?

Kaven: Yes, I’ve been writing since I was 6. Actually, the first character I came up with and wrote for a school project was about a girl named Krystal...Krystal Myth. It led to some interesting conversations with my parents and teachers, but really, I just had a great imagination as a kid. This led to a lot of laughter and reminiscing about what we all used to write as kids.

Where did the inspiration for your stories come from?

Kaven: A Forbidden Fate was written completely from being on TikTok live. It was taking random ideas from followers on TikTok and was talking out ‘what ifs’ from ACOTAR, and really built out the story. I started it with the ideas from the 2005 Pride & Prejudice, you know, the moment...the iconic hand flex... this idea of how one singular touch could change the world. What if that’s all he wanted, all he needed, but he couldn’t have it? But then adding in drinking, banter, and just good fun.

How did the writing process differ between A Fallen Sword and A Forbidden Fate?

Kaven: Oh gosh, totally different. Since A Forbidden Fate was written via TikTok live, it was totally different than A Fallen Sword, which was written off my own DND campaign. I was the Dungeon Master, I created all the characters, but wrote the book off the D20 roll, it was all about the critical failure, which you see throughout the book. While A Forbidden Fate is very low stakes at first, it pays homage to my followers and fans. A Fallen Sword is generated to be high stakes, it's the heroes and criminals having to team up, and a lot of chaos in the process.

A Forbidden Fate is a trilogy with the final installment coming out in Spring 2025, “A Tormented Touch.”

Let’s talk about your skits and the Maasverse crack theories

Kaven: The fun of the bookish community really does come out of the Massverse. Sarah is basically Lex Luther watching and listening to our crack theories. Look... my wildest and most controversial theory is about Elain. I think she’s evil, that she is playing the long game. Her being evil will be her redeeming quality for me. I don’t know if I think SJM has the cajones to do this,  but it would be great!

We go on to discuss some really controversial crack theories, including SPOILERS:

• Kaltain being the Suriel

• Rhysand being a King of Hell, Velaris being a level of Hell

• The ring Tamlin gave Feyre is the same ring Aelin found in TOG

• Hunt is actually Jesus Christ (this one is super funny)

But in all seriousness, there was a lot of SJM talk, theories, and what our desires for her next installments would be. Something we collectively agreed on is that we need some major goodbyes to characters, essentially what we had and felt in TOG.

You’ve built a really strong community around you, let’s chat about that...

For those who don’t know, Kaven is a part of a close group of authors, Amber V. Nicole, Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Stacey McEwan, Samantha Ferrand, and Maggie Siciliano, who are always supporting and loving on each other both on social media and in person. We commented on not really seeing that within other author groups, and Kaven talked about how it came to be.

Kaven: Really, since 2021, we were mutuals, and Maggie wanted to launch her YouTube channel doing author interviews, and it started with the lives, then Zooming a few times a month. Then, in 2022, Maggie made a group chat just to not text us individually about something, and it became something more. We text every day, my phone is blowing up in the chat right now. What started as an ‘author rap up’ really became the magic of these women becoming my best friends. It’s more than just us as authors, I was there before Hannah, Amber, and Stacy all really blew up, when they were each writing their stories still, this community is magic.

What does the bookish community mean to you?

Kaven: It means everything. As readers, this community can be very isolating; you read alone. You have thoughts and feelings that are spilling out of you, and maybe no one to share them with. It’s like when I want to talk to my family about Henry Cavill, but they don’t get it, so they don’t care. I think most of us have experienced that before finding the bookish community. A lot of readers are introverted, and it has led us to not just finding this community but building it together. The bookish community has also really just saved publishing. For me, it also has instilled a lot more confidence unless I’m in my Cassian voice. But reading takes time, patience, and brain power, it's more than just bed rotting. It is a community of people who have empathy, who care about the world. It is fiction in fantasy, which is a doorway to the world I want to escape into.

“Fiction is  the doorway to empathy.”