Like many authors, I tend to think in pictures. Daily life for me is a constant stream of pictures--some of them joyful and overflowing with positivity and some of them painful and dark--but every one of them full of raw beauty in their own unique way.
Such pictures helped birth The Emberlight Chronicles. As the story flowed from mind's eye to written word, the pictures became increasingly vivid and lifelike. I often sketched out the characters and the scenes from the book as I envisioned them. When it came time to publish first Blood State and then Blood Wars, I knew that I wanted to incorporate artwork into the final package. It seemed natural, essential even, as the story continued to come to life.
I selected illustrator, Madisen Keikkala to undertake the task of bringing each chapter to life in The Emberlight Chronicles. With a latent talent beyond her years, Madisen's earthy, unrestrained style melds perfectly with the wild and brutal world that lives on the other side of the Barrier. Never one to put a character into a box, Madisen deftly takes just enough from the written description of each character to form a loose depiction of what they could be, but still leaves plenty of room for our own imaginations to fill in the details. The Emberlight Chronicles is about persevering and keeping the embers of hope alive no matter what life throws at us. Madisen's amazing chapter artwork helps us fall a little more in love with the characters of Oregon Zone and brings them to raw and rugged life as she sets off a spark in the vivid theater of our mind!