Bio:Mari Adkins

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Mari Adkins was born in Corbin, Kentucky on February 15 and graduated from Corbin High School in 1987. Attended Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. Lived in Loyall 1995-1999. Lived in Lexington 1999-current with life partner and muted calico cat. Professional independent writer and editor since 2000.

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I am a southern gothic fiction writer who grew up in the coal mining community of Woodbine in southeastern Kentucky. My poetry, short stories, and other writing to date have appeared in the e-zines associated with the now-defunct 3Sides Literary Agency, the limited Stories from the Red Light District anthology, in various projects associated with Apex Publications, and in the Help anthology.

My stories, at least what I've written since 1996, take place in my own version of the gothic hinterlands of [Harlan County], located in Kentucky. The great beauty of Harlan County contrasts sharply with abject, inherent strife. Its mountains are scarred by mining, and its people are quite often insular and distrustful. This landscape provides the backdrop for my writing and is often a character in its own right.

I started writing what would become the first in my Harlan Vampire Series (although I've learned recently the series has gained some strange infamy on college and university campuses as the "Hillbilly Vampires") in October 1996. It only seemed natural to call that first story Midnight - so much imagery ended up woven all through the story because of that one simple word. Promise of Midnight, Midnight, Midnight's Heir, Heir's Starlight, and Starlight's Shadow are all books in my "Harlan Vampires Series" - or HVS as it's called. The characters in my stories are not your usual bloodthirsty Bram Stoker-type vampires. They are people with hopes and dreams, desires, drives, and life-crises - some major, some minor, but all of which help push the characters into growth and understanding.

I'm on leave from my 'job' as a slush editor for Apex Magazine, and am busy being an independent writer, book reviewer, and editor. I am the editor of the Harlan County Horrors anthology, published by Apex Book Company in October 2009. My first novel, ​Midnight​, will be published by Apex Publications in 2014.

I have lived away from the mountains and lived deep in the mountains. My current home is in Central Kentucky with my lifepartner and our cat. I am the mother of two young men and am an avid supporter of kidney disease awareness and living organ donation awareness. The mountains, their culture, their superstitions, their particular magics, will always be in my heart and my blood.