Kira's Staff Picks

Kira Apple grew up in the rolling hills of Eastern Pennsylvania, moving to Florida five years ago to attend Florida Atlantic University for Comparative Studies. She's now a PhD candidate, and her research focuses on fantasy, digital media, audiences, and affect. Her dissertation (very much a work-in-progress) looks at belonging and found family in fantasy fiction podcasts and their surrounding fan communities.

Kira has a chapter in the forthcoming book Roleplaying Games in the Digital Age: Essays on Transmedia Storytelling, Tabletop RPGs, and Fandom from McFarland. Her piece looks at collaborative storytelling, worldbuilding, and audience participation in the actual-play D&D fantasy comedy podcast The Adventure Zone. Additionally, from 2016-2019, she was the Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Language and Sexuality.

Kira has read, studied, and loved books, particularly fantasy and science fiction, since she was a child. She worked at multiple bookstores in Pennsylvania, even owning her own used bookstore, The Wise Owl, for a time. Kira is also active in the audio fiction community and lends her voice to a number of shows, including Superstition and The Way We Haunt Now (coming October 2020). 

An extremely amateur crocheter, she fills the rest of her time with writing fantasy stories, playing RPGs and video games, listening to speculative fiction podcasts, and volunteering for cat rescues. She lives in Decatur with her fiancé and four cats: Magrathea, Ichabod Crane, Hazelnut, and Mr. Tumnus.