How Acclaimed Debut Author Kevin C. Morris Writes

Acclaimed debut author Kevin C. Morris spoke with us about exploring the Alaskan coastline in search of a mysterious island, his query and publishing journey, and the resultant novel UNTAMED COAST. 

Kevin C. Morris is an engineer, and journalist (with 20 years of long-form writing under his belt), as well as a recreational pilot, boat captain, and entrepreneur based in Portland, Oregon.

His genre-bending debut novel, Untamed Coast, spans three timelines: 1938, the 1980s and 2017, all set along the rugged Alaskan coast, and described as “an atmospheric novel perfect for fans of McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore, Moore’s God of the Woods, Lawhon’s Frozen River, and Heller’s The Guide.

New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn said of the book, “Untamed Coast is a bold, intricately plotted debut unfolding against the beauty and danger of the Alaskan wilderness. . . . The timelines coil, the intrigue mounts, but it’s Kevin C. Morris’s vivid evocation of Alaska’s savage beauty that truly shines…”

Kevin spends his summers navigating the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska—a rugged landscape that fuels both his adventures and his fiction.

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In this file Kevin C. Morris, Milena, and I discussed:

The story behind the Radioville mystery that inspired the book

How the novel was won at auction after multiple rewrites

Why his agent found his original query “kind of awful” and how he recovered

Where Morse code became a part of the plot and the structure of the novel