About A. K. Folsom
My work is shaped by fascination, inquiry, and craft.
I came to fiction deliberately, after a long career built on systems, logic, and structure. That background shapes how I work now — patiently, analytically, and with respect for process rather than impulse.
INFLUENCES
Vampire stories have held my attention for as long as I can remember, across every register — campy and gory, classical and strange. What mattered was never a single version of the creature, but its persistence and adaptability across cultures and eras.
That curiosity extended beyond reading. I spent several years freely contributing my technical skills to Vampyres Only, one of the earliest dedicated online vampire communities. Though the site is no longer active, its founder, Brad Middleton, continues his work exploring vampire history and culture through his book Un-Dead TV and his website My Bloody Obsession.
CRAFT
For over two decades, I worked in technology, where clarity, structure, and long-term systems thinking were essential. That discipline informs my writing: world-building with rules, hierarchies with consequences, and narratives that reward attention rather than shortcuts.
When I committed seriously to fiction, I approached it the same way — studying craft, revising extensively, and subjecting the work to years of outside feedback. Early drafts taught humility; later drafts taught restraint.
THE ORIGIN
In 2021, during a severe bout of COVID, a series of fever dreams refused to dissipate when I woke. I documented them obsessively, and within days had the raw foundations of what would become an entire series.
What followed was not inspiration alone, but years of rebuilding, rewriting, and listening — allowing the story to become what it needed to be, even when that meant changing its shape entirely.
THE WORK NOW
That process became Ravens Hollow, now planned as a four-book vampire series with companion volumes. Set within a hidden society shaped by power, lineage, and long memory, the work explores inheritance, loyalty, and the cost of survival across generations.
The first novel, What Darkness Reveals, is scheduled for release in June 2026.
I don’t believe writers control stories. I believe we serve them — with patience, discipline, and a willingness to let them change shape when necessary.