H.S. Kallinger shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning H.S., we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: Have you stood up for someone when it cost you something?
Many times. I’ve lost several friends for standing up for friends and family or, more broadly, human rights. I have lost sales for refusing to be silent in the face of injustice. I think the most recent loss was of a community space for disabled trans people when I stood up for another member against the space organizer’s racism. But I’m not interested in being a part of a space that continues after something like that.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m H.S. Kallinger, and I’m a geek, Trekkie, gamer, music lover, anime fan, proud parent, and a huge consumer of speculative fiction. I’m a writer, and while I’m primarily a novelist by trade, I do also write songs, poems, and the occasional short story as well as blogging. I used to also write broken down, accessible versions of my college essays to share the criminal justice field education with anyone interested, regardless of prior education in the subject. I have worked as an editor and sensitivity reader. I design book covers as well.
I specialize in science fiction and fantasy (SFF) genres, especially sci-fantasy, and I have six published novels available in a series that has two possible beginnings. The first book is psychological horror/urban sci-fantasy, but if that’s not to your taste, you can start with the second, which is urban sci-fantasy with psychological elements, which the rest of the series continues with. I’m releasing a new series that is a queer urban sci-fantasy coming-of-age beginning October 10th, 2025, with ‘A Demon to Save Me.’
My books all utilize my background studying psychology and follow queer protagonists. Some common themes include introspection and self-discovery, found family, growth (sometimes in the wrong direction), and healing inside worlds that are also healing.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
The world starts telling us who we’re supposed to be at birth–or sooner. Roles are assigned based on parental connections, social status, assumed sex and gender, birthplace, and so much more. Every one of those things shapes us, tells us who we are supposed to be, how we’re supposed to fit in this world and find our ways.
And sometimes, some or all of those things are lies.
Before I was told I had to be a tomboy if I wouldn’t be a girl, I was a toddler who learned to pee standing up and didn’t want to be forced into girly clothes. I was a child who wanted to wear dresses, but only where other people wouldn’t see. I was a child who cried when I saw a happy little boy tripped by a bully, when I saw his smile dissolve into tears. I smiled with him. I cried with him.
I was a child who, when I was punished for defending myself against bullies, started defending other children against them, too, even though none of them wanted to be my friend. I put my body between their abusers and them until they were safely away so I could fight back. I won all my fights.
I was a boy that everyone told to be a girl. I was a nonbinary child that the world told to get into boxes I couldn’t fit into. I was a neurodivergent child in a world that refused to explain itself clearly, refused to see my needs as legitimate compared to those of my neurotypical peers, and punished me for things I couldn’t control (like executive dysfunction or needing to physically move my body) while telling me that I was wrong and bad.
I was a tween who was told that I had no future and would either be institutionalized or imprisoned, and no one cared anymore.
I was a teenager who decided that my upbringing and environment didn’t get to dictate who I was. I chose peace. I chose understanding, olive branches, and I chose to forge my own path only with the people who liked me for me and not the masks I’d tried (poorly) to don for their comfort.
I was a young adult whose dreams were shattered when I was declared permanently disabled and unemployable.
I’d wanted to be a veterinarian, a rock star, an astronaut, a paleontologist, a cetacean biologist, a forensic pathologist, a forensic psychologist… I didn’t want to be a writer, not because I didn’t love writing–I’ve been a storyteller and performer my entire life–but because I was told that the arts were only a hobby you could use to supplement your ‘real job.’ But I suddenly wasn’t allowed to have a ‘real job,’ either. It was still another nine years before I realized that it freed me to be what I was always meant to: someone who helps others escape into new worlds.
So, I was no one before the world told me what to be, and I finally became myself after I stopped listening to its incorrect instructions.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
The first time I tried to give up on the big one, on life itself, I was fourteen. There have been many times where I almost gave up. But on a less… stressful… note, perhaps this was meant only for my career? For that, well, I constantly have to fight the inner voice that says no one wants what I write.
It’s a lie. Some of the most fulfilling moments as a writer have been:
The time I was told that someone learned to love reading through my book who hadn’t read a book since they’d been forced to in school.
Being told I was someone’s favorite author (and every time it has happened since). I can’t ever stop, for their sakes.
Being told someone realized they were in an abusive relationship and found the strength to leave because of my books.
And one of my favorites is when someone tells me they discovered something about themself that they never knew because of what I’d written and how it had made their life better.
That’s what I want to put out into the world–I want to make people’s lives better. So, every time I think about giving up, I remember those times, and I keep on keeping on.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is me, yes. I’m actually very open about who I am, my struggles, my hopes, dreams, and vulnerabilities. I do still wear a mask in public (the great thing about text is that no one has to hear me stuttering, fixing sentences for clarity or structure or correcting aphasia, etc., and I can realize I’m saying something wrong–or that I learned something wrong–and fix it before I hit ‘post’), but even that mask is made up of me, who I am.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What will you regret not doing?
Traveling.
I want to see so much more of the world than I will ever have the chance to. One of the options of questions here was ‘If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing?’ and the answer is nothing, because I have lived like I might die next month since I was a teenager. I never thought I’d get to grow up, let alone grow old. While I do make plans for the future now and actually think I’ll see a few more years (barring unpredictable circumstances), I *am* disabled.
I have lived in the US, in the KC metro, my entire life. I’ve gotten to see this country coast to coast, from California to Virginia to Louisiana but never north of Nebraska! I very much would love to go on a road trip to experience the US, but even more, I want to go to Europe and see every country my ancestors lived in and more. I dream of traveling from Ireland to Scotland and south to England, France, Spain, over to Germany, up through Denmark, etc., and all over. I’d love to see Japan, too, as that’s where my sorta-stepdad was from, and where my mom dreamed of visiting but never got to. I could carry her genes with me there, at least.
Even if I get to hit all the places I could think of, there will always be somewhere I missed, and I can’t help but regret it.
Especially as one of those places is ‘the stars.’ My heart couldn’t handle going up, and I will never not regret that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hskallinger.weebly.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hs_kallinger/
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HSKallinger
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hskallinger
- Other: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/xakana.bsky.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@hs_kallinger
My blog: http://hskallinger.blogspot.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/xakana
Image Credits
H.S. Kallinger, Chrissy A., Rachel O’Dell, and Amy Black Bear
