Four Oaks native adds to town's literary culture

By Randy Capps

On the surface, the town of Four Oaks is a quiet unassuming place. It doesn’t look like the sort of place that would produce literary works ranging from Russian history to science fiction.

While Dr. Barbara Allen wrote the world’s first biography on Alexander Shlyapnikov in English, another Four Oaks native is busy producing dark fantasy novels.

K.L. Stewart is the pen name of Kristy Reimann, and she’s written five books so far. One is a book of poetry, called “She’s Facing Me.” “The Ruby Mountain” is a children’s book and the other three are part of her Dark Angel Wars series.

She still lives in Four Oaks with her husband, A.J., and daughters Victoria, 18, and Annakah, 5.

“I stay at home,” she said. “I clean and take care of my daughters. And I write. I write when they’re at school.”

Her passion for writing developed early.

“I’ve just always liked to tell stories, even before I could read and write,” she said. “I would just look at books and make up stories. Then, when I learned how to write, I was writing stories as far back as I can remember. And I was serious about it, even as a kid.”

In fact, her latest book, “Angels and the Dark City of Trost,” is part of a series that Stewart has been working on for years.

“The current books that I have, the idea came to me as a short story when I was about 12,” she said. “It was a rainy day, and I couldn’t go outside. So, I was like, ‘I’m going to write a story.’ And I kind of kept writing and kept writing — and now it’s a series of books.”

It’s changed a few times since then, of course, but that idea is now the heart of what she plans as a 12-book series.

“For people who don’t write it’s hard to understand, but you have characters who live in your head,” she said. “Some of them, I’ve been thinking about and writing about since I was 12. So, they’re just as much a part of me as anything else.”

The book, which Stewart recommends for adults or teenagers, is a dark fantasy.

“You have a group of heroes who are physic beings,” she said. “They have powers. It’s very sci-fi. They are trying to go into this dark city. And it’s called that because that’s where the Shadow God thrives. They’re trying to get intel to help the forces of good, and of course, they’re going to run into obstacles along the way.”

Stewart cites Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series as an inspiration, and her love of the genre dates as far back as her knack for writing.

“I’ve always loved it,” she said of science fiction. “Thinking back, Masters of the Universe was probably one of the first things that really inspired me. I still share the old cartoons with my kids. They love them.”

He Man and She-Ra aren’t the only things she shares with her children.

Her older daughter, Victoria, has an author credit on “The Ruby Mountain.”

“The children’s book came about through a trip to the mountains with my daughter,” Stewart said. “She was eight or nine, and that age, they’re into fairies and unicorns and that sort of stuff. Her birthstone is a ruby, and she actually found this huge ruby when we went gem mining in the mountains. ... A lot of it was very much inspired by her.”

K.L. Stewart poses with her latest book, “Angels & The Dark City of Trost.”

She’s working on a sequel to the children’s book, and there are still plenty more books to come in the Dark Angel Wars series.

The volume of her ideas, and the pace at which they’re created, make self publishing a good fit for Stewart.

“Publishing it is not that hard,” she said. “It’s getting the word out. I don’t have a marketing team or anything, so I do everything myself. I also do my own artwork. That takes a lot of time to figure out. But getting it out by self publishing is great. You don’t have to wait for someone else to tell you whether or not it’s worth their time when you know it is.”

It’s just the sort of attitude one might expect from someone who creates a world’s history and puts it to paper.

K.L. Stewart hosts a blog at www. authorklstewartcom and her books are available at www.unipolargames.com.