Author Interview with Katelyn Peterson

Welcome, Katelyn, to our author interviews. Readers can find her profile here at spotlightonindie.com/authors/katelyn-peterson. 

Katelyn Peterson writes contemporary fantasy where magic intersects with technology, and the small folk of the world make the biggest changes. When not writing, she can be found relentlessly hunting down egg thieves in the forgotten realms of old video games. Justice – or at least 100% completion – will be served. Go Spyro!

SPOTLIGHT: To start out, tell us about your writing, starting with the main characters of your book(s)…

KP: My book and series has an ensemble cast, so trying to talk about all of them at once would be a bit overwhelming. For my first book, The Light of Arunzi, Greg Ryder is the main character, but his second-in-command, Ed Logan, and his new kids, Lancelot and Alanna Calvin, are the primary secondary characters.

That's not to say the other members of Télnis Aonan don't have their own minor subplots, but Greg, Ed, and the kids take center stage.

SPOTLIGHT: What is the setting of your story (or stories)?

KP: My overall setting is Albion, an Alternate History version of Earth where Morgause and Morgan le Fay conquered Camelot during the reign of King Uther Pendragon. From there, the sisters and their magical army continued conquering kingdoms and countries until, by present day, the Albion Empire rules over the entire Earth.

Unlike most contemporary fantasy stories, magic does not hide in the shadows of modern society. Instead, those with magic (magois) openly rule over all society, with the Royal Family and the old magical nobility at the top, regular middle-class magois in the middle, and all those without magic (techies) at the bottom.

Since The Magois Chronicles itself follows a team (télnis) of techie cops (Enforcers) in Toronto, the city of Toronto serves as the immediate setting for the series and the first book, which is The Light of Arunzi.

After the assassination of Lord and Lady Calvin, Sergeant Greg Ryder gets custody of their children, Lancelot and Alanna. But their ruthless, politically ambitious uncle isn't about to let Ryder keep the children if he can help it. Worse, Ryder's team is divided as their lifelong prejudices against magois clash with the reality of two young orphans who just want a new home.

Caught in the midst of the decades-old power struggle between the magois elite, Ryder and his team are faced with a choice:
Keep the children?
Or keep their lives?

SPOTLIGHT:Can you tell us about some of the themes in your book?

KP: Gaius Konstantine of Just Reading Nook (justreadingnook.com/2026/09/14/light-of-arunzi/) described The Light of Arunzi as "blend[ing] high-magic fantasy with contemporary urban fiction… [and] …themes of social exclusion, family, and friendship." Which is quite accurate, though I tend to simplify my series down to 'contemporary fantasy cop drama.' It's quite a mix, with fantasy living alongside police, thriller, and political intrigue elements. Plus, some family drama and fluff thrown in for good measure!

At the core of the book, the 'base trope', if you will, is Greg's status as a reluctant guardian. He is torn between wanting a new family in the form of these two orphans and a painful awareness that magois society will never allow a commoner techie like him to keep two powerful heirs of a noble magois House.

Greg is also deeply afraid of losing his team, who have acted as his 'found family' ever since his wife left him, many years prior to The Light of Arunzi. Since all techies are oppressed by their magical rulers, the prejudice against magois runs deep, making it nearly impossible for the two sides to peacefully coexist in the same space. This, of course, is only exacerbated by the constant attacks from Cyrille Torrance, the children's paternal uncle.

Even so, once given the chance for a new family, Greg's heart grabs hold with both hands and won't let go. This, in turn, forces his team to choose which is more important to them: their prejudice or the bond of brotherhood that they all share.

SPOTLIGHT: What inspired the book(s)?

KP: I have been telling stories all my life and I've been a lifelong reader ever since I learned how to read in first grade. I also grew up in the era of more primetime cop and mystery shows than you could shake a stick at. Couple that with being at the mid-to-tail end of the Hollywood Video and Blockbuster era and I also picked up a love for several shows and cartoons which are older than I am.

So when I stumbled across fanfiction in my freshman year of college it was a perfect fit for me. I did far more reading than writing during those years of trawling through fandoms that ranged from Harry Potter to Star Wars, the BBC's Merlin, and even Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Never did get into the Buffy TV show proper, though – I majorly squirked at the live action horror.

I did dabble in writing fanfiction myself, but virtually all of my stories were 'pantser' type stories. That means I was making up the stories even as I wrote them out.The trouble was, without any sort of concrete direction, most of those stories ran out of steam before they'd hardly gotten a chapter or two in.

In 2016, I found myself getting a bored with World of Warcraft. I had started playing it during Wrath of the Lich King, you see, when WoW had moved away from the major daily grind of 'kill 10 thousand minor little bad guys for 5 reputation each' to the still grindy, but much more variable concept of daily quests. Unfortunately, Warlords of Draenor tried to have their cake and eat it, too. They kept the daily quests on one hand, stacking ever-more dailies on top, and started shifting back to the grind that had defined both the original World of Warcraft and Burning Crusade. For an alto-holic like myself, it was a recipe for disaster.

Thus, the summer of 2016 found me picking up my (digital) writer's pen again. I also changed my writing approach in an effort to actually finish stories instead of abandoning them in a half-written state.Instead of writing by the seat of my pants, I planned out my titles, story blurbs, and major story 'beats' before writing word one.

This proved to be a winning combination and I quickly ended up shoulder-deep in a major crossover between my favorite crime show and several magical/sci-fi fandoms. But, well, I just as quickly discovered that most fanfiction readers prefer to keep their fandoms quite separate, thank you ever so much. Oh, crossovers are welcome and both major fanfiction platforms offer features for authors (and readers) who do crossover-type stories, but… Where a 'conventional' fandom story will garner dozens of reviews per chapter, I rather quickly found that I was fortunate to get a scant handful of reviews per story.

Nevertheless, I had a blast and spent many years exclusively focusing on my multi-crossover series. I even still have it going on the side. But I did eventually reach the point where I wanted more out of my writing than an 'after work/weekend side hobby.'

So I decided to put together an original world, with original characters, and see where that world could take me. It's been a complex endeavour, to say the least, with a lot of background and detail that I simply didn't need when I was playing in the 'sandboxes' of existing franchises.

But it's also been very rewarding, though I'm still in the early days. Odd to say 'early days' when I've been seriously working on this original fiction since 2022, but it is, indeed, still the early days of my author career.

SPOTLIGHT:  Was there any key inspiration to creating this world and this story?

KP: The alternate-Earth world of Albion and my central cast have grown out of my fanfiction series, which certainly provided much of my initial world ‘skeleton.’  From there, I made a number of deliberate changes to pull my original world further away from the fanfiction origins and give my world a distinct culture.

So, while I can definitely point to Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and several other fantasy series as inspirations, I can also point to my eclectic collection of games and TV shows.  In particular, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, and Immortals: Fenyx Rising.

SPOTLIGHT:  How has the world of your series changed compared to the real world with magic and an aristocracy? How has this altered the development of technology and the culture?

KP: To keep my world-building from spiraling completely out of control, I decided early on that my alternate version of Earth would keep most of the same timeline as our own Earth.  While the exact circumstances are different, much of Albion’s history is quite similar to our own when it comes to major historical events.  It’s just that the world conflicts were often stirred up by various members of the magical aristocracy jiving for position and advantage within (or against) the Albion Empire’s Royal Family.

Likewise, technology has actually retained much of the same development as our own Earth.  My characters have access to computers, cars, phones, airplanes, and so on.  As law enforcement professionals, they even have the right to carry guns.  The caveat is that most technology available to non-magicals cannot work in magical areas and is deliberately kept at a level below the magical versions of Albion’s technology.  For that reason, medieval technology like swords and bows are still relatively common, though the magical aristocracy has deliberately ‘killed off’ any medieval technology that would give non-magicals any sort of advantage in a fight.

SPOTLIGHT:  Can you explain a little bit of your magic system and the culture(s) of your worldbuilding?

KP: My magic system is largely spell-based, with Old English as the primary language used in spell-casting.  There are elements beyond the spells, but spell-casting is a basic foundational ability for virtually all magois.  The other basic part of my magic system is that virtually all magois will have a magical construct known as a mage guardian.  Mage guardians are created when a young magois is about 10 years old, are animal-based, and accompany a magois throughout their lives as a companion, protector, and magical guide.

On the culture/religion side, the primary pantheon of Albion is the Celtic pantheon, with the Triple Goddess and Her Consort seen as the preeminent gods ruling over all the other gods.  Both the magic system and the primary pantheon tie into my concept that the Albion Empire began as a magical conquest of Camelot by Morgause and Morgan le Fay.

Now, by present day, the Celtic pantheon is far from the only pantheon worshipped by Albion’s people.  The joint Greek/Roman pantheon is almost as popular, with the Nordic and Egyptian pantheons taking the bronze.  Other world history pantheons also remain and are often most popular in their historical places of origin, with additional pockets of adherents Albion-wide.

The exceptions are Earth’s monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Because those religions are inherently hostile towards the idea of multiple gods, they were viciously stamped out by the Albion Empire.  This ensured the Albion Empire could retain their power and ensure their subjects’ allegiance to the Triple Goddess and ‘Her Chosen Royal Family.’

That said, aside from the paganism, the culture of Albion tends to be a Western-style culture, just with magical monarchies and aristocracy instead of the Western governments and bureaucracy that we are used to dealing with.

SPOTLIGHT:  How did writing fanfiction and/or gaming prepare you for creating your own world?

KP: Although writing my fanfiction series taught me many lessons and formed the initial ‘skeleton’ for Albion, I would say that reading fanfiction was far more important.  Oh, I definitely absorbed ideas from my gaming, childhood reading, and watching various movies and TV shows.  No doubt about that.

But by reading fanfiction across many different fandoms, I was exposed to a wide variety of stories and authors, each writing with familiar characters in familiar sandboxes.  There’s a huge range of talent when it comes to fanfiction, plus the need for any fanfiction reader to figure out what types of stories they want to read.  Most importantly, a fanfiction reader must decide what they are prepared to tolerate in terms of reading stories.

Since everything is free, a fanfiction reader has no leverage to make any demands of fanfiction writers.  Don’t like the writer’s favorite, favorite character pairing?  Story getting dark or heading down a path you hate with a passion?  Well, you either grit your teeth and keep reading or you move onto the next story.  Not that this stops some fanfiction readers from complaining anyway…

So I learned right quick how to interpret fanfiction lingo and I appreciated those writers who were kind enough to put certain warnings right in their story blurbs.  Oh, definitely, I ran across stories that I had to stop reading partway through, but the sheer range of concepts and ideas across all the different stories left me with a true treasure trove of ways to view both the Real World and my fictional world.

In fact, there was one particular Harry Potter fanfic which I ran across that explored the Muggle side of the Memory Charm.  It really challenged the idea of the Memory Charm being a ‘harmless’ way to keep magic secret, viewing it instead as a horrid violation of the victim’s autonomy and ability to trust their own mind.  I’ve never been able to find the story again, but it changed my viewpoint on magic and ‘Muggles’ in both my later fanfiction reading and in my overall writing.

SPOTLIGHT: How many books do you have planned for the series?

KP: I’m not really sure how many books will ultimately be in the series.  I’m currently working on the second book, with a third mostly plotted out and in the very early first draft stage.  But I’ve gotten used to having long, ongoing storylines with ‘standalone’ stories capturing the ‘plot of the week,’ if you will.  Probably comes from my central fanfiction fandom being a drama-style TV show.

SPOTLIGHT: What other books do you have available or are planning to write?

KP: As I mentioned above, I have been writing fanfiction for a decade, but The Light of Arunzi is my debut novel on the original fiction side of the fence. There is also a short prequel novella (First Alliance) which is free for anyone who signs up for my author newsletter. Finally, while I don't anticipate it being available until sometime next year, I am currently working on the second book in The Magois Chronicles, which will be titled His Father's Son.

SPOTLIGHT:  What can readers expect from you in the future? (How often do you hope/plan to publish books in The Magois Chronicles? Will you be writing this series exclusively until it's done or are there some other stories that might be written in between books of this series?)

KP: Easy part first: I don’t currently have any other original fiction series that I’m working on.  Now, I do still have my fanfiction series as a side hobby, but much of my working time is going towards this original fiction series.

Now…  Release cadence…

A couple months ago, I probably would’ve said that I hope to have a yearly cadence in book releases.  And that would’ve been a somewhat frantic ‘I hope so,’ complete with crossed fingers behind my back due to the ever-present day job demands.  Since then, my non-writing life has changed so dramatically and in such a short time that I really don’t know what my release cadence will be.  I do still suspect that Book 2 will need roughly six months to nine months as my non-writing life is very up in the air right now.  But even that may change, depending on how long it takes for my non-writing life to shake out into a new normal for my Mom and I.

For books beyond Book 2?

I’m not really willing to speculate, not with life so fluid right now.

SPOTLIGHT:  I always like to ask writers for advice for others. For anyone reading this, it might offer some help in their own journey.

KP: It’s a very old, well-worn truism in the writing community that if you want to be a good writer, you have to read.  I agree with that, to a point.  I would say that you have to be both discerning in what you choose to read and as wide-read as possible.  Because, if a writer limits themselves to just their genre or just their professional expertise (for non-fiction), why, you’ve just backed yourself into a corner where the only material you ever get exposed to is stuff from ‘your genre’ that every other genre writer has read, too.

No, no.  Read anything that catches your fancy, even if that’s just the morning paper.  Look for the stories in the games you play, the shows (and movies) you watch, as even the most hum-drum documentary is ultimately based on a story of some kind.  And don’t just passively absorb the story.  Dig into it.  Try to figure out why the people in those stories did what they did.

Some of the best fanfiction I’ve ever read has to do with fanfiction writers digging in and asking ‘Why?’ questions.  Or asking, ‘What might change if that event happened differently?’  If this character responded differently.  If the history behind canon events unfolded in such-and-such a manner.  Or what if a minor character stepped up and became the hero of their own story – thus naturally changing how the main characters respond.

Don’t be afraid to explore different ideas and different worlds.  Even re-exploring familiar worlds from different angles.  And don’t be afraid to mix things up, genres included.  It’s a slower, harder path than staying on the beaten track of long-familiar genre types – a difficult prospect indeed when being an indie author is already a fraught experience.  But I would rather be struggling along with my guys than trying to come up with a world, characters, and storyline that are so far into convention that readers can recite all the usual tropes in their sleep.

Most of all, have fun with what you write.  If you have fun, if you find the thrill of building new characters, places, and worlds with words alone, then that’s an achievement, all by itself.  Our world needs builders, no matter what shape they might come in.

And, as Greg Ryder loves to say, “Keep the Peace!”

Thank you, Katelyn!

You can find more about Katelyn Peterson in her profile on spotlightonindie.com/authors/katelyn-peterson or jump to her website at www.katelynpeterson.com.