Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kat Vancil. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kat, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

My story studio “The Saga Quest” came about from me and my husband being storytellers and fantasy gamers, and also my being a huge mythology nerd.

If you’re also a fellow fan of Norse myth you know that a saga is “a long tale of legendary achievement.” And for me—someone who is autistic and dyslexic—I grew up being told that being a professional storyteller was something beyond my capabilities. Clearly I chose NOT to listen. After all a quest is the pursuit of something even if the journey proves long and arduous.

Now if you’re a massive myth nerd like me, you know there’s also a Norse goddess named Sága who was the goddess of storytelling.

And there you have it, how The Saga Quest got its name. I also affectionally call all my followers Story Questers.

Kat, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a professional storyteller of Queer Fantasy Fiction who also teaches aspiring writers the basics of story construction, character design, and genre elements in easy-to-follow weekly emails & blog posts.

Back in 2008 I started out in the children’s industry as an illustrator for picture books and children’s products. When the recession really hit that segment of the publishing industry hard, I transitioned into doing book design, and covers for young adult novels along with their companion art assets.

In 2012 I launched my own little indie story studio and my first novel which later became part of a trilogy. While running my own studio I also did work for publishers like Writers Digest and Amazon.

More recently I had to take several years off due to being diagnosed with 2 rare illnesses. However, I returned at the end of 2021 to launch a serialized web novel, a weekly advice series for beginning storytellers, and the studio published several more books.

As of today, The Saga Quest has released 90+ weeks of content for storytellers, 2 web novel series, and 15+ books.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

At the beginning of 2019 I had to change everything about how I create and run my story studio. You see, before 2019 I used to go to and exhibit at a dozen or so conventions and festivals a year. But in 2019 I was diagnosed with an incredibly rare vascular illness which changed everything.

My vascular illness made standing or even sitting at a desk for any length of time detrimental to my health. It also caused intermittent fatigue and muscle weakness which made the strenuous setup and take down, as well as the loading of a vehicle, an impossibility for me.

And even more difficult than that, was the loss of my creative space. You see, I’d enjoyed a home studio for a decade and suddenly—almost overnight—it was unusable and would be for the rest of my life. Because the nature of most rare illnesses is that they are incurable.

But I refused to give in to despair. After all, I’ve been told I would never dance again twice after debilitating injuries. And yet here I am still dancing each week for my health and exercise.

So instead, I traded in my home office desk and desktop for a bamboo lap desk, a sectional sofa with extra deep seats, and the latest MacBook Pro and tablet. If I couldn’t create stories and covers from my studio, I’d just create them from my couch. I also switched up my schedule, splitting my work day in half to allow my body time to rest. Another important addition was building physical rest days into my schedule after events outside the home.

Making these adjustments to my creative life allowed me to return to publishing. And even though it wasn’t the life I had before, I’ve accepted my new normal and become an advocate for other creatives like myself with rare and debilitating illnesses.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Prior to 2017 I primarily wrote Young Adult in the genres Romantasy and Urban Fantasy Thriller with romantic elements. However, in 2017 I was invited to be part of an Adult SciFi Romance anthology.

Now one of the highlights of the group project was critiquing a partner’s story. It was my first time doing such a thing, so I put a lot of effort into it. However, at the time it felt like my partner didn’t offer anything helpful or constructive to improve my storytelling or further myself as a writer in her critique. Or did she? On the surface her commentary seemed unhelpful and more than a little offensive so I disregarded it.

Fast forward a year and a half later. I’d been really struggling in my writing career, I’d had a Fantasy series fail to gain traction, another big project go out of print when the publisher shut down, and was feeling sort of directionless. I kept starting and abandoning story projects left and right. And then I came across that writer’s critique of my work in an old folder on my computer.

That’s when I realized it actually had merit. And that:
— I was struggling because I was trying to write what I thought I SHOULD be writing instead of what I actually WANTED to write.
— That I was essentially writing in the wrong genre.
— And most importantly, the reason she had voiced that criticism was because my story was not meeting reader expectations. (Because I was writing in the wrong genre.)

After realizing this all, I pivoted to writing Queer Fiction in the summer of 2019 and everything became infinitely easier. Dozens upon dozens of stories flowing from my mind to my fingertips between that moment and today. Instead of feeling like I was banging my head against a brick wall to create one story in a year, now I can create the basic framework for a story in a weekend and easily write 10,000 words in a week. Though the process of getting them into the hands of readers does take a little bit longer of course.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kat.thesagaquest.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesagaofkat/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSagaofKat
• Other: Threads: https://www.threads.net/@thesagaofkat
  Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/thesagaofkat/

Image Credits

Kat Vancil & The Saga Quest