Who Is Kit Moss?

Why don't you start by telling everyone a bit about yourself.

I have been writing stories since I was about seven, and I have been a man for my whole life, though I did not figure that out until rather recently.  That is, I am transgender.  I wrote as “Nan Hawthorne” for most of my writing career.   I knew my work was unusual for a woman, and now I know why and am very pleased to be “in character” at long last. 

Oh, and you can call me Kit.

How long have you been writing?

When I was about seven I wrote a whimsical story about a lonely old man who winds up giving rides to the neighborhood kids in his rabbit-powered rocking chair.  I mostly just played make-believe, not writing the stories down after that, until I was twelve and a friend and I started writing stories that wound up becoming my first novel decades later.  In the meantime I wrote nonfiction, mostly web content. My first book was about sex, self esteem, and pagan values.   I had started a group on Yahoogroups called Ghostletters where everyone participated fictionally, and when I decided to use those old stories I realized I was writing a novel.  That’s when my real life began.

Tell us a bit about your newest release Where My Love Lies Dreaming

WHERE MY LOVE LIES DREAMING brings together two very different men, a New Orleans riverboat owner and professional gambler who has lived “out and proud” as much as he can, and a repressed German immigrant who wants nothing more than to be “normal”, a hardworking, American man with a family.  If opposites attract, they also are doomed to throw a monkey wrench into the works, and Frankie and Johnny struggle to share love and lust while Johnny is in deep denial.  Just after a huge fight where they split the American Civil War breaks out, destroying both men’s ways of life.  When the two encounter each other again, it’s as a Union and a Confederate officer on the battlefield.

I am very proud to say the reviews have been stellar and that just today I discovered my novel is a finalist in the 2013 Rainbow Book Awards!

Historical fiction is both fascinating and daunting to me as a writer. What drew you to this genre?

It’s a lifelong passion, but recently it has become much more.  I love history but there are segments off the population who were “erased” from it, everyone from women, to racial minorities, the poor, and, specifically, LGBT people.  The only records of our lives through history are negative or at best interpreted negatively.  I believe strongly that we have been here always and that in spite of the pressures and dangers we faced, many of us made lives and loves for ourselves.  I want to create a sort of history though plausible, well researched and reasoned historical fiction.

What else have your written? 

My first novel was based on those stories my friend and I wrote as pre-teens, AN INVOLUNTARY KING.  It is not an LGBT novel, but the characters in it are my oldest friends.  Ironically my next novel was about a woman who chooses to live as a man in order to fight as a knight in the Crusades.  I said I wrote it so I could have a female character I could relate to… and of course Elisabeth is more a transman than a woman… that helped me to some critical self-examination.  I self published this one, and now I am thrilled to say it is being republished by Harmony Ink.

I also have written tons of book reviews, stories, articles, and other imaginative and fairly often humorous material for the Internet.

Tell us something(s) interesting that is not in the blurb(s)?  [Feel free to talk about one or the other or both]

One very challenging aspect of writing historical dialogue is making sure you don’t put 21^st century words into your characters’ mouths.  Now with my first two novels that was not that difficult.  After all, everything a character would say would have been in a language no one speaks now.  When someone once criticized the use of the 14^th century word “tavern” in a book that takes place in the 10^th century, I pointed out that none of the words in the entire book existed in the 10^th century.  Writing my Civil War novel almost made me nostalgic for writing about extinct languages when my editor and I played sleuth with words that turned out to be newer than 1865.  You’d be surprised.  “Playboy” was OK, but “stud poker” was not.  I wouldn’t change it for the world though.  It is just plain fascinating.

Have you ever based characters on anyone you know?

Oh yes, and I even named some after real people.  The best example is the provost major near the end of the novel who is my good friend Jack in every way.  It’s a very funny scene.

What's your favorite part of the writing process?

Getting a whole new set of friends every time.  A novelist gets to know his/her characters quite intimately, and though I grieve at the completion of a work, I also know that somewhere out there in the characters’ dimension, there is another group just waiting for me to tell their stories.

What's your least favorite?

The inevitable reviews written by people who judge a book by their own personal druthers or simply do not understand what the author is doing in the book.  They have too much influence on others’ book choices, but, fortunately, not nearly as much as they think they do.

Since there is always another story to tell, what are you working on now?

One character in WHERE MY LOVE LIES DREAMING is Michael Murphy who talks about having fought in the Mexican-American War where he was badly wounded.  Sounds like another novel to me, don’t you think?

What have you read lately that most people haven't read but should?

I’m afraid your readers probably read the same things I do.  Maybe I will hearken back to one book and series that knocked my socks off, Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series.  The first, GAME OF KINGS, has the most arresting transformation of the main character I have ever read.    I read so much, my Kindle always chattering away day and night, though, that it takes a lot to have a book stand out like that one did.

If you could meet any writer, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

Whoever wrote Beowulf.  I want to party with him.

What's a fun – non-writing – day for you?

Ikea and a lunch of Swedish meatballs with my sweetie...

Besides reading and writing, what else do you enjoy?

There’s something else?  I jokes.  I have an almost religious devotion to naps which include our cats. I enjoy movies but have failing eyesight, so I don’t see that many anymore. I am naturally cheerful so I can have fun almost anywhere and doing almost anything that doesn’t require bending, kneeling of squatting.

Last question is all yours – feel free to talk about anything you want your readers to know about you, your book, anything at all.

Wow, you mean I can wax eloquent about how Europe’s trade was impacted by the Crusade of 1101 because it forced dependence on sea trade which proved vital in the advancement of the Italian cities?  Oh you said I could write about it, but not that anyone would read this paragraph.

OK, how’s this?  What I always want to know after someone has read my book is who their favorite character was and why, if there was a scene they specifically enjoyed, and if they laughed at lines and which they were.  So now it’s your turn to answer.

From Charlie Cochet's  Purple Rose Tea Room.