Indie Support Sunday: River Kai

May 25
12 min read

I love when fellow authors have so much to say about their journeys and books, and most importantly WHY this was the path they chose. River Kai’s answers are so thoughtful and wonderful, I promise it’s worth the read. I was introduced to him via an author friend earlier this year. But what River might not know is that I’d been seeing his My Shy Alpha covers around and in a mission to find out who the artist was (so I could commission them, of course), I stumbled across River’s profile. His art is gorgeous and so is the human himself.

I read Soul Survivors soon after we connected for the interview and I went through every emotion imaginable. Emmalee and Niko’s story is one that takes you on quite the journey—of every kind, I kid you not—but it’s such a powerful one too. I would definitely advise you read the content and trigger warnings before you read this book because it tackles so many difficult topics. But River handles them all with care, even when it’s not a soft moment. I think that speaks volumes of the kind of writer he is!

The third and final book in his My Shy Alpha releases June 3rd and is currently available for preorder. River’s also got two webcomics that are available, so make sure you pick up EVERYTHING he’s ever written and created. You won’t be sorry.

BEING AN AUTHOR

Who or what inspired you to write?

Growing up, my animator dad taught me how to draw. I admired his incredible, seemingly endless list of skills, inspiring me to draw with him often, and to listen to his thoughts on any and all creative media. I also loved creating imaginary stories with my younger sibling, Ashlynn, in our free time, allowing us to laugh and express ourselves through fictional characters with our toys. This set me up for a deep love of manga, video games, movies, and TV shows, learning from their storytelling methods until I began crafting my own stories in my head to give me an escape as I struggled with insomnia and chronic illness from a young age.

When Lyme disease threatened to take my life as a teenager, writing saved my life. I was bedridden and a shell of myself, so I made writing the next page of Chronic Nightmare Syndrome—my first discontinued webcomic that inspired Soul Survivors—my new purpose. I didn’t realize it at the time, but writing this horror story was a cathartic release, allowing me to express what it felt like to live under constant, inescapable attack from within my own body. I lived to create the next page and the next, guiding me to my second webcomic, What-Sexual??, which brought me to the realization of a secret I had been harboring from myself: I’m a transgender man.

This combination of self-expression and self-acceptance gave me the strength to pull through, granting me a second chance at life. I’m now determined to write stories to hopefully help others like me feel less alone.

Why did you choose to self-publish instead of going the traditional route?

With my background in webcomics, it was a natural next step for me to continue self-publishing as I moved to also publishing novels!

Beyond being able to illustrate and format my own books, I have many practical reasons to self-publish. As a trans and disabled author, I’m far more able to keep my physical exertion at safe levels for my body if I’m in charge of my own schedule. I’m a workhorse of a human being, so that isn’t the problem: I physically can’t exert the amount of energy many others can, unless I’d like to face severe physical consequences that could set me back from working for months or even years.

Living with multiple chronic illnesses and my LGBTQ+ identities has also opened my eyes to extreme disparities in this world, witnessing harsh, life-threatening discrimination, all the way back from when I was a small child. These insights are what make my stories better.

However, while traditional publishing has made recent strides, these topics haven’t seemed to be fully understood and/or valued by the wider industry just yet, leaving authors like me to continually have to prove ourselves worthy to be published. Even if I were to be selected by a literary agent or publisher interested in these types of stories, my fear would be that (in this current day and age that I’m writing this) I’d likely not receive the marketing or funding required to have a successful launch. Or with larger publishers, I may be expected to water down or even remove these topics “for general audiences.” This feels like sacrificing the heart in my stories, and that’s a risk I can’t afford.

The irony is that on the indie side of the industry, we’ve witnessed the exact opposite craving within our readers—desiring more representation of themselves and others in every way. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? What we as readers do best is putting ourselves in one another’s shoes!

My hopes are that, like many others self-publishing incredible stories before me, I can continue to provide content on these marginalized narratives, and therefore, we can show the industry what we’d love to read next, together!

When you’re not writing, what do you do to get the creative juices flowing?

I cannot stop playing the Sims 4. Someone help.

Really though, I love creating ridiculous stories in the Sims to get my “trash” ideas out of the way. Funnily enough, these “trash” ideas of mine often end up being the best ones that I build stories off of for books. From designing sims in Create-a-Sim, giving me new ideas on how to visualize my characters without having to illustrate them myself, to building houses or workplaces for my sims, and then playing their lives out to solidify their existence, every aspect of this wild game recharges my creativity for stories.

What I find the most interesting about this game is that you can really connect with your sims in mundane, boring-sounding moments like watching them eat their breakfast; the simplest moments carry a lifelike charm to them. I find the power of the mundane so inspiring, especially since I often write dramatic, high-stakes plotlines; it reminds me to step back a bit and enjoy the sweeter moments with my characters.

The Sims 4 also always throws any story plans I make for my sims out the window, which is not unlike writing a book where my characters decide to destroy the second half of my story outlines—and why I’ve become more and more of a “pantser” writer that just writes lawlessly and chaotically until it’s eventually all filled in. Lately, I’ve been streaming myself playing the Sims 4 on my Twitch channel for charity events, which is always a blast! But most of the time, I spend my time in this game by myself as a break from working.

No one can know how many hours I’ve logged on it, though. It’s obscene.

ROMANCE AS A GENRE

If not romance/subgenres of romance, what genre would you like to write in?

This might not be a surprise to anyone who has followed my work for a while, especially with my recent release of Soul Survivors in October 2024, but my heart has always been embedded into both Thriller/Horror and Romance genres!

I have a bit of a dark sense of humor about this; I often tell people I have the easiest time writing psychological thrillers because between PTSD and OCD, the first place my mind zips to is the worst-case scenario, so I never run out of disturbing material! Part of my writing process for romance is toning down or removing these worst-case scenario ideas… most of the time.

It’s extra funny to me that part of my OCD management (which is a lifetime task) includes writing worst-case scenario “scripts” about my greatest fears coming true—except those scripts are intended to be as dramatic or extreme as you can make them, so it ends up sounding kind of silly. Who knew I’d be causing the same thriller chaos for mental health treatment purposes! (Me, I knew—that’s why I got started doing this job without knowing the depths of how I was supporting myself!)

On a more serious note, I’ve combined aspects of both genres in my stories as a way for me to process difficult aspects of life. I find the sweetest moments in my books to come from thrillers, and the most poignant healing to come from the darkest moments in my romances due to the contrast each can provide. I love blending these genres from a trauma survivor’s perspective, not in the hopes it disturbs, but in the hopes that if someone can relate, it might feel cathartic, validating, or give them a reason to keep going when they see characters surviving alongside them.

What are some tropes you want to write in the future?

The fake dating trope is so funny to me, and I’d love to combine it with something that has a lot of other established lore, such as vampires or werewolves. I feel like the combination would be extra ridiculous, and therefore entertaining. Like, why would a 200-year-old vampire be forced to fake date anyone unless it was for a completely nonsensical, hilarious reason?

Otherwise, I always love a good soulmate/fated mates trope! I’ve been writing out some new ideas for twists on the soulmate concept that will show up in a few of my books in the near future, playing around with what it means to find consent within “expected” relationships, and how fate may pair us up with those we might not expect, but who may end up being the best for us. I can’t wait to share them someday soon!

YOUR BOOKS

Can you briefly tell me about your books?

All my stories feature LGBTQ+ leads who have survived some sort of trauma and are living with chronic illnesses and/or mental health conditions. I also love writing about true love/soulmates, a common theme in my stories!

Throughout My Shy Alpha, my steamy shifter romance series, an abuse survivor with OCD and PTSD re-learns what it means to be loved.

In Book 1, titled My Shy Alpha, Aliya finds her werewolf fated mate—except she had no clue Lycans existed until she meets Noah, the shy, top Alpha of the biggest pack in the Pacific Northwest. Noah thwarts expectations of shyness being “weak” with his sheer strength, but he’s still outspoken in his beliefs that all werewolf genders deserve equal rights. Together, the fated mates must navigate not only their intimate, blossoming relationship, but the growing strife against their belief system as they break social norms.

Freeing My Alpha, Book 2, expands on Aliya’s mental health recovery and setbacks as their relationship moves into the long-term, all while she’s redefining her concept of belonging in a community.

In King Luna, Book 3, the fated mates dive even deeper into werewolf gender identities as Alpha-domination forces come to a head, and our two leads realize they don’t quite fit society’s expectations. They’re left with a choice to follow the old pack ways, or to rebel, choosing to be themselves—and fighting for the safety of all Lycans in the process.

Soul Survivors is an LGBTQ+ psychological thriller meets romance, and it’s set in a dystopia. The story follows two childhood friends raised in a patriarchal military cult that they’ve come to detest. It’s potentially deadly to try to escape, and yet they’re craving to—Niko a sexual assault survivor used for his combat abilities and Emmalee living with chronic illnesses that deem her “unworthy” in the cult’s society. But their plans are thwarted by Niko’s abuser, and to make matters worse, this abuser happens to be targeting the whole world next with a vicious medical experiment.

Unraveling with You follows Lilibeth, an aspiring chef with anxiety who makes a new gym buddy Remington, a tattooed “bad boy” with golden retriever energy. When Lilibeth discovers Remington’s career as a Dungeon Monitor at Club X, she unburies her deepest fantasies. Except if she wants to play with Remington, she has to learn it’s okay to say “no” after a lifetime of abuse—and figure out why Remington’s smile only raises one cheek.

I’ve also written quite a few (and scrapped some) webcomics and graphic novels! Most notably, I wrote and illustrated the completed What-Sexual??, an LGBTQ+ romantic drama about a trans masculine, suicidal college student whose life is saved by a goofball of a pansexual man. This new friend quickly grows into more as they both dive deeper into finding self-acceptance.

In my LGBTQ+ sci-fi graphic novel Resonance (Space Gays), four queer astronauts are the first to journey to Mars. Not only do they have secret desires for each other that would go against company policy, but they’re also coming to recognize the disturbing realities of colonization, all while their space capsule seems to be encountering more and more mysterious issues.

How much of yourself do you put into these characters?

I relate to all of my characters, sharing identities, experiences, and emotions with every single one of them.

However, I don’t self-insert details about my specific life experiences, and I would never say I fit any one of my characters as a person.

This isn’t to say I don’t put anything personal in my writing. The opposite, in fact.

It’s actually scary for me to write about so many topics that are so deeply vulnerable, which is exactly why I choose to do so—I know they’re often not talked about enough, leaving those who can relate to me to feel just as isolated as I have in my experiences.

My stories are raw and feature a lot of heavy topics, so instead of writing about my own life, I actually find having some personal distance to be far more helpful in my own relationship to my writing. It allows me to process deeper thoughts and traumas in an associated, gentler way, while also allowing my characters to shine through their own stories, not mine. While it’s true I strive to create stories to help others feel less alone, ironically, I end up writing characters that help me feel less alone as well—as if I’m surviving alongside them as proof it’s possible to get through hard times.

And yet, “self-inserting” is actually one of my most common misconceptions!

One of my FAQs on my website dives into this, particularly because some commenters on my webcomic, What-Sexual?? speculated I self-inserted with my character, Tyler, another trans man. (I thought it’d be fun to try out his haircut since I liked it. Big mistake.)

Now, there’s an important bit of context about my background that many might not think about, but will explain why I’ve chosen not to self-insert: as a webcomic creator, you don’t only face negative reviews at the end of publishing like you do when publishing a book—with readers writing their opinions on the book as a whole. With a webcomic? Every. Single. Page. Is scrutinized. Whether it’s in adoration or spouting the most vile homophobia and transphobia I’ve ever encountered, I’ve read it all for those stories.

So, would a notoriously “mysterious” and shy vampire of a person self-insert and subject myself to that scrutiny? Nope. Lol

Actually, every time I publish a book, my therapist and I anticipate the incoming OCD flare from worrying about what others may think—and all the ways I might accidentally be publishing something horrible without realizing it—no matter how much I wish I could let others’ opinions go.

But experiencing this mental health rollercoaster with every book isn’t a “bad” thing to me. Not only do I love writing personal-adjacent stories to help myself process, but publishing also helps me to continue to fight back against OCD, proving that I can survive challenging my worries about publishing something vulnerable, even if it’s scary. Perhaps this will have to remain my most common misconception for a while! :)

What’s next on the bookshelf for you? Anything you can tell us about a future project?

King Luna is almost here! Releasing June 3rd, this will be the third and final book in the My Shy Alpha series, and the one I’ve been dying to release since I started its rough draft in 2022. It’s the deepest dive into werewolf gender identities (yes, I went there) that the series has seen yet, and I absolutely love the new dynamic it draws out of our leading couple, allowing them to express themselves far deeper than they ever have on the page.

I will admit, I’ve been incredibly nervous about this release. I put so much extra pressure on myself since it concludes the series, and it impacted my writing process. The timeliness of this book and our world’s social climate, especially writing as a trans person in the U.S., has also been a major emotional undertaking. When I began writing this series in 2022, I didn’t anticipate 2025 to hit so close to home with this silly werewolf story; My Shy Alpha tackles not only gender norms and misogyny, but also patriarchal fascism, using dominance-hungry Alphas as an analogy for those in power.

As a trans person, I’ve been anticipating possible responses to the werewolf gender fuckery (as one might say) included in this book. Many misunderstand us trans people as becoming “someone else” when/if we transition. Without giving spoilers, I will say my characters are experiencing something adjacent to the trans experience. I am of the opinion that this expands them rather than breaking them. I know some will disagree, especially those who are anti-trans and expected a cis-het romance from my bisexual-led, trans-informed book with werewolf genderqueerness galore, but regardless, it’s my deepest wish for those readers who need this affirmation of themselves to witness this journey. After a whole series of building up their confidence and trust in life after abuse, my characters will finally have a chance to shine as their authentic selves in King Luna, and like many of us, they have to decide whether they’d like to take the opportunity.

Beyond these thoughts, I’ve been sad to conclude this series I’ve loved. The only thing that has remedied my final-book woes is a spin-off idea I’ve had in mind for a while about an Omega trans man in the same universe, so not to worry to anyone who reads this who may be sad it’s ending like I am; while the main storyline between Noah and Aliya will end with My Shy Alpha, they just might show up again in future books! (Hint: if you read until the end of King Luna in June, you’ll see why the My Shy Alpha series will directly impact this spin-off.)