James D. Priest

James D. Priest, M.D., majored in English at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He studied English in the masters program and received a Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Minnesota. He spent three years in Japan as a physician in the Army of the United States caring for casualties from Vietnam, and four years in orthopedic residency at Stanford University. He practiced orthopedics in Minneapolis for twenty-one years. He has authored or co-authored approximately thirty medical articles, and received the Minnesota Medicine Outstanding Writing Award.

When asked how he got into writing, James Priest, M.D., responded as follows: “I decided to do some writing not related to medicine. I have always had a good imagination. When I was small, I told stories to the other children on the school bus, and later to my children when they were young. I have enjoyed reading science fiction and fantasy, especially Tolkien. So, I decided to write a fantasy. But to challenge myself, I set the tale in today’s world rather than in Middle-Earth, or on the moon, or in the year 2025.

“As a child I collected miniatures, and I have always liked little things. Therefore, I made the characters and their world small. I created a race of magical beings one foot tall. They are kirins. In the distant past they lived in peace and harmony with humans. But a major divergence occurred between the two races, and kirins had to separate themselves from us. They invoked a spell that makes them invisible, and have long since been forgotten.

“It took a few weeks to set ground rules for a kirin civilization, to make things fit properly and work. Then I sat down and began to write, and the story flowed. I had no occasions of writer’s block.

“I was practicing medicine full-time when I wrote the trilogy, and it took four years to complete. I wrote early in the morning, at night, on week-ends, and on holidays. It became work only if I spent too long in front of the computer. Otherwise it was the most pleasurable thing I have ever done. Someone asked my wife how many hours a week I wrote. Her answer surprised even me. Forty, she said. I never kept track of the time, except to know when I had to quit. I was enthusiastic about the undertaking from beginning to end, and was fortunate to find what has become a second career.”