Melody Kittles is a fantasy fiction indie author writing under the pen name Robin McElveen. She has been happily married since 1994, is a mother of three, and homeschooled her children from 1999-2023. Morning coffee is a vital part of her daily routine and a cup of tea in the afternoons or evenings never goes amiss. Often described as crazy, quirky, eccentric, and just plain weird, she counts these labels an honor and wears them proudly.

In 1983, Melody met the most important person in her life. His name is Yeshua (Jesus) and He has been her constant Guide and Companion ever since. She'd say she goes her own way, but perhaps that's not entirely accurate. She hopes to go in the direction He points her. Sometimes she trips and falls along the way, but she gets up every day and continues on. You'll catch a glimpse of her faith in her writing, but it is most certainly fiction literature.  

The Y'Dahnndrya books began as an idea adrift on a foggy sea of homeschool busyness in September 2016. NaNoWriMo was a "new" idea she wanted to use to encourage her girls to write more and have fun doing it. She joined in wholeheartedly and ended up having more fun than her girls! And so the very raw product was born, then revised and refined until at last, Ripples began to take shape as her first true novel.

Since then, she's published that book (2018) and is currently working on the final edit of the second in the series. She has also published a novella set in the same world which introduces a few characters in the second book, particularly one troublesome guy. Books three through five are in progress, as well as several shorter tales. Of necessity, she takes her time, working hard to make sure her writing is as good as it can be before each book is released. This means the time between publishing one book and the next is much longer than might be expected.

Her blog allows her to document her journey from the beginning of her serious attempts at writing until the unforeseen but inevitable end. Hopefully, something she picked up along the way will help or encourage others.

These Make Her Smile

Interviews! Whenever she’s asked to be interviewed, she always feel like it's happening to someone else.

• Here's one from NFReads.com. Interview With Author Robin McElveen ...She still can't quite believe it...

• Here's an interview with Elzevera of Willow Editing. To read this one, you have to be part of the forum but if you are an author who wants to know more about self-editing, why not join? If you'd like to join Under the Willow, just click here. Then you can take advantage of all the different things the site has to offer. As far as she knows, it doesn’t cost anything to join, but it’s been a while since she was a member.

• And last but not least, here's my interview with author Skylar Jaymes on Instagram. I hope you'll also stop by her Goodreads page and check her out. She recently put out an epic fantasy book, Andromeda: The Crown of Fire, and Robin had an opportunity to be one of the beta readers.

• Please note: These interviews are old and there’ve been several changes. In the last interview, Robin had planned for Over Land & Under Stone to come second in the series. After much prayer and thought, it fit better as the third book. She was a member of the Under the Willow forum for quite a while before she stepped out. She enjoyed the interactions, but at the time, was suffering a massive bout of burnout. She does look forward to being interviewed again in the future.