H.S. Kallinger (he/they) has been actively writing (on paper) since he was 13 and was first published in a teaching magazine in high school. His favorite subject tends to be vampires, but they love most of the fantasy and sci-fi genres. A scientist at heart, they enjoy looking for the ‘why’ behind everything. The unifying theme to their works is LGBTQIA+ characters, a subject they are passionate about. He majored in Criminal Justice with a minor in psychology and lives in Kansas with his husband, four children, and five kitties who fill them with love.
Author Links: https://linktr.ee/hskallinger
Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/hskallinger
Operation Olive Branch: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch
GoFundMe’s Highlighted by Authors for Palestine Event: https://afp.ju.mp/#info
For the AfP event we have selected the following 3 families to help boost their fundraisers. The details below were taken from the OOB spreadsheet.
Mohammed’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Mohammed’s Instagram: @mohammedalbaredei
Ibrahim’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Ibrahim’s Instagram: @ibrahimwithi
Rula’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Rula’s Instagram: @rula_mohammed
You were one of the authors involved with the Authors for Palestine event – can you tell us why you chose to get involved with this, and which of your works you put up as raffle prizes?
The situation with Palestine has been stressing me out since I started learning about the history of the area. I abhor suffering. However I can help alleviate some, I try to. I am vehemently opposed to the actions of the Israeli government. I put up my entire published works as raffle prizes.
Do you find your sense of social justice and activism informs the philosophy of your writing, in terms of narrative and character arcs? If so, how?
I write queer characters. I write neurodivergent and disabled characters. I write characters like me. That is an act of politics. All art is political, but especially writing. When it comes to science fiction and fantasy, politics is in the very roots of the genres and everything we do. My sense of social justice informs everything I write, from making certain I’m not only avoiding racism but am actively anti-racist to writing worlds where the activism makes a difference. There are likely all sorts of messages and meanings that I am oblivious to having woven into my stories. The whole ‘the curtains are blue’ thing–I just like blue. But it doesn’t mean that I’m not unconsciously inserting layers into the narrative that mean more than I was aware of during writing. And my current protagonist is a social justice advocate himself.
As for character arcs? They’re all about healing on both a micro and macro level. I’m a criminal justice major, so there are definitely themes of restorative justice. When I delve into near future writing, I include societal reforms that I want to see happen here. Well, except the post-cyperpunk dystopian universe, but cyberpunk has always been about critique.
Let’s talk about your work a bit more; you have 2 series that you’re developing, “Lost Humanity” and “Found Humanity”. What for you is the underscoring theme/s that follows through these series?
Both series are about ‘otherness,’ healing, finding community (and family), and finding who you’re meant to be (self-discovery). They’re also about love in all its forms. I suppose the big theme is that “People are monsters, and monsters are people,” and everyone chooses what that means for them, personally. With Lost Humanity, it’s about a human protagonist (initially), Zack, who becomes a villain’s lackey and more and more monstrous as he goes along. At the same time, he’s trying to balance that against its conflict with his internal sense of self. He doesn’t want to be evil, but he also feels he has no choice. At the same time, he’s aware that he is responsible for those choices. He’s a mess. With Found Humanity, my dhampir protagonist, Gabriel, wants to change the world for the better. He wants to be a hero. And as he progresses and becomes physically less human, he loses the monstrous aspects of himself as he heals.
How do you work with the interplay of queerness and monstrosity, in a world of queer characters and vampires, dhampirs, and so on?
Well, first, none of the monsters I write are metaphors. They’re literally what they’re supposed to be. So, being a vampire isn’t a metaphor for being queer or something, but I do believe that we’d treat vampires pretty much the same as queer people, and there’s a lot of similar experiences. Vampires ‘transition’ after they change/become/transform/are elevated–whichever term their culture uses (there’s no universal language happening here) as they mature both physically and mentally from a newly changed (the most common American terminology for the time period of these books) into a mature vampire who can return to human society. So, you can read metaphor into that, for sure, even though I approached it from a more scientific POV. Having new systems develop, new instincts, having to adapt, relearn, etc. It’s a lot like a fast-forward second childhood. So, a trans vampire could be said to be in ‘third puberty.’ Yikes.
My vampires aren’t monsters. They are a subspecies of human who undergo a kind of metamorphosis after being infected and become potentially-symbiotic super-predators. Like any people, they can be monsters, and it’s more likely that someone with superhuman abilities who see other people as food might become monsters, for sure, but in the end, it’s entirely their choice. I might enjoy the ‘all vampires are queer’ jokes, but I don’t agree in practice.
As for the actual monsters, the diversity of queerness remains the same as in our own population. The Lost Humanity world has no Gabriel Belmont to change the fact that there are only humans, vampires, and dhampir on Earth… or at least, as far as I know. It has the same chance as our own world to harbor ghosts and such. If they’re real here, they are there, but I can’t say for either universe. With Found Humanity, Gabby’s ability to break through into other universes changes the equation. He finds worlds where queerness was never othered. He finds masked worlds (which he hates). He learns magic and makes friends with a demon, werewolves, fairies, dragons, and more. Anyone who becomes more than friends with him (or her or xem–Gabby is genderfluid) is going to be some flavor of queer, most likely. Someone once mentioned that Hotel of Lost Souls blended the vampires in so naturally to our world that it wasn’t a story about vampires, but rather, a story about abuse and change that happened to have vampires in it.
Where do you see your take on vampires fitting into other literary traditions like Gothic Horror, Paranormal Fiction, etc that feature them, and why choose Sci-Fi as a vehicle for yours?
I chose sci-fi (though it’s properly sci-fantasy, there is enough hard science to fit both) because I love science. I first learned basic quantum physics theories (well, what we had in the late 1980s, anyway) at 9 years old when a college physics professor saw me reading OMNI magazine and struck up conversation with me at the dojo where my mom worked, and I spent most of my time when I wasn’t at school. We’d have conversations about science every week after that while he waited for black belt class to start. I don’t remember when or why they stopped. Science was always my favorite subject. Many of my favorite teachers were my science teachers. Especially the clearly neurodivergent weirdos, like me. I got into Star Trek at ten (my husband beat me by getting into it at age 4, lol), and while I’d watched some other sci-fi here and there, that’s what really hooked me. I don’t think I can write a modern world book that isn’t at least a little sci-fi.
There are definitely vampires in my world who’d fit in just fine in Gothic Horror. I prefer to deal with psychological and social issues precisely as they are, as opposed to metaphor. Call the duck a duck in part to remove stigma. And my first book in the Lost Humanity series was primarily psychological horror.
There are aspects of Paranormal Fiction in my works. Some of the things that control the rules for vampires can’t be explained neatly by science. For example: the threshold. There are theories that it’s a psychological block, but those are defeated by what happens when you move an unconscious vampire inside on without an invitation. What happens to them is almost entirely in their mind, except that they can end up having seizures and burn through their blood supply. It can’t kill them, but they’ll wish they were dead in seconds. Another is their ability to move at impossible speeds. If they’re carrying someone, the rider isn’t really jostled any more than being carried by anyone else. They don’t create the levels of friction they should. However, there may be elements of some kind of ‘bubble’ protecting them from standard physics that forms… which doesn’t explain the bubble itself, either. The science is as incomplete there as it is here. It might be discovered later, or it might not. And gifted vampires can have gifts that are very difficult to explain by science. There are certainly theoretical sciences that can explain many of them but not necessarily all of them. And that’s why it’s sci-fantasy.
What are your publishing plans for “Lost” and “Found” – what should we be looking out for?
Well, the Lost Humanity series is over and done, except for a collection of short stories. You can purchase all six books at multiple retailers. More of the short stories will be published on my blog to read for free, but I’m currently finishing up a novella that will be the final piece of the Lost Stories compilation (that is, short stories from that series) that will only be available in the published book. I’m hoping to finish it and put it out this year, but I can’t say for certain.
The best places to watch for release dates are on my Patreon, Facebook (H.S. Kallinger), Threads, or Bluesky.
The Found Humanity series will be a rapid release of over twenty books when it’s finished. They’re a lot shorter than the Lost Humanity books (which were mostly epic-length), which better fits the less plot-driven nature that rejects the standard western story format. The first few books are in the polishing stage, but the last hasn’t been written yet, so I can’t say when, exactly, they’ll be ready to be released. Hopefully, when that day comes, I’ll be putting out a new book every couple months for a few years.
Leave a Reply