A little bit about my life and books.
Thank you for visiting my website. My name is Kyle Pratt and I write post-apocalyptic, science fiction and speculative fiction novels, novellas and short stories.
If you need a more detailed look at me as an author please go to the Media Kit.
For most of my life, I never thought of being a writer.
I didn’t start reading novels until I was in Middle School. The year was 1970 and I was in the eighth grade.
My family had recently moved to a very rural area of Colorado, beyond the reach of television and most radio.
My sister, an avid reader, had many books in in a variety of genres in her room. One day in desperation for entertainment I borrowed Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein from her.
I liked the cover.
The book cover showed a young man on the bridge of a starship. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but it looked really cool. It took me several days of constant reading to finish the novel, but it grabbed my interest and held it tight. That book taught me that reading could be fun.
I never gave the book back to her and still have that original paperback copy of Starman Jones in my library. I doubt I ever would have become a writer if I hadn’t first read Starman Jones and learned to enjoy reading.
After that, I read all of Heinlein’s works. I also read many of the science fiction novels of Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov, including his Foundation series.
During my teen years I started reading end-of-the-world books, a genre we now call post-apocalyptic. The first book in this genre I read was, The Earth Abides, by George Stewart. Later came books like Alas Babylon, On the Beach, Lucifer’s Hammer and many more.
I have never stopped reading and the list of authors that I enjoy continues to expand.
I still have that original copy of Starman Jones. I keep the novel in a shadow box above my writing desk.
If that book hadn’t grabbed and held my imagination I would never have read all the other books that followed.
And I never would have become a writer.
Six things about me
I really am a prepper.
I lived six years in Japan, three years on Guam, and seven years in an Eskimo village.
I learned to scuba dive on Guam including diving inside sunken ships.
One of my hobbies is beekeeping.
I served on the battleship USS Missouri during the Gulf War.
I’m a fan of the sport of curling.
How my writing career began
I was thirty years old and stationed in Japan when I completed my first short-story manuscript. I called the 7,000-word Twilight Zone style tale, Grandma’s House. I must have sent it to twenty magazine publishers. A few sent me rejection letter, but most just ignored me.
That first draft was really awful, but it took me years of writing, reading and listening to others before I figured that out.
Since it is my first story, Grandma’s House has special meaning to me. I revised it eighteen times and sent it to many more publishers, but it never sold. However, I think it is now an excellent story. Today, I give it away to people that sign up for my newsletter.
Today, Lorraine and I live on a small family farm in Western Washington State. Rural life keeps me busy. After my writing is done, I repair gates and fences, tend bees and chickens and walk in the woods.
Go to the Media Kit page for additional information and ways to contact me. One of the best ways to talk with me is to use the form on the Let’s Talk page of this website or email me at kyle@kylepratt.me