Name: Kyra. Yes, my pen name is my real name. Not the most creative, I know, but I happen to like my name; it's unusual. It's derived from the Greek, means "ladylike", and is pronounced to rhyme with "deer-a". In fact, Kyra-Deara is my mother's pet name for me to this day. The 4 was just assigned to me by FFN, I assume because three other Kyras registered before I did. I have the same last name as a famous singer. People always ask me if we're related. To the best of my knowledge, we are not.

Location: Northeastern Washington State. Formerly San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA

Age: Not a teenager anymore! But not too far from being one, lol! I'm young at heart.

Occupation: Field of Early Childhood Special Education, having just earned my Master's in this subject in May 2007

Relationship Status: Married

Someday I Want To: Kiss my husband in front of the Taj Mahal. Light a candle in St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Stand in awe beneath the Northern Lights. Go back to the Australian Outback, one of the most beautiful, desolate places on earth. Be a published, not to mention paid, author!

Interesting Personal Tidbits:

I can touch the tip of my tongue to the tip of my nose.

I draw, but I write better.

I'm a leftie! (Which is why "my" Draco is always a leftie! Why my Draco and not my Hermione? I dunno - just seems to suit him better.)

I have "Harry Potter Green" eyes.

I have "Hermione Granger" bushy brown hair. Actually, it's really not very bushy anymore but if you could have seen me in high school - I pretty much was Hermione Granger! (Alex25 can vouch for me on this - she's seen the photos from those days.)

My husband and I look alike - people ask if we're siblings. Not as much as they used to, though, when I had henna-red hair (he's a natural redhead - my very own "Weasley" boy - the shorter, stockier variety, a la Fred, George and Charlie.)

I'm adopted. My biological mother was a teenager who gave me up at birth. At age 21 I searched for and found her, and now consider her as a very close older friend. My parents who raised me from five days old on are my PARENTS. My brother, also adopted and of a completely different race than me, is (despite his ability to piss me off so severely that I can hardly see straight) my BROTHER. Actually, perhaps his ability to piss me off so severely that I can hardly see straight just proves that he's my brother. They are my family. Why do I mention this? There is a surplus of stories on this site that feature an adopted Hermione, and I have yet to read even one that I don't find personally offensive. The insensitivity that is displayed is astounding. Sometimes adoption is portayed as the character's dirty, shameful secret; other times she accepts the news that she is adopted, usually revealed on her 17th birthday, with complete calm, and basically says, "well, so long Mr. and Mrs. Granger, thanks for looking after me; I'm going off to join my real family now; have a nice life." I can hardly decide which offends me more. Please, if you're going to write about this very loaded topic, try to have a bit of sensitivity. In fact, unless you are adopted, or have a family member or friend who is adopted and can give you some real insight into what it's actually like, maybe you should rethink writing about it at all. If all you want is an easy way to bridge the social abyss that exists between canon Draco and Hermione so that you can skip straight to the PWP, there are plenty of other cop-outs... ahem, I mean routes... to take.

(Here's a nursery rhyme my mother used to sing to my brother and me. I hope it will help non-adoptees understand the depth and strength of love between adopted children and parents.

Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone, but still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute, I bore you not under my heart, but in it.

Pretty, no? And I want to thank the other adoptees out there who've emailed or PM'ed me kind words of agreement and support!)

Recommended Reading: As far as novels go; the Harry Potter series by Rowling (well DUH), the Lord of the Rings series by Tolkien (think the movies're good? Try the books!), The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin, the Belgariad series by David Eddings, Wicked and Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, and the Gunslinger / Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Ooh, and a newbie to the list - Eragon and its sequel(s). Hmm, I'm noticing a pattern here- all fantasy, every last one of them! Fantasy isn't all I read, believe it or not; I shall have to think of some non-fantasy titles to add to this list. So more will be forthcoming. As far as fanfiction goes; Lori (HP/HG), Maya (DM/HG; DM/HP), and Cassandra Claire (DM/HG; DM/GW; DM/HP) over at Schnoogle.com, and Vashka (DM/HG), Rainsrabble (DM/HG), and Alex25 (DM/HG; SS/HG) here on Fanfiction.net. Or consult my favorites list, obviously. Happy reading!

Okay, non-fantasy books I recommend in no particular order (see I said I'd come back and add this later, and here I am!)

Middlesex, The Lovely Bones, She's Come Undone, The Red Tent, The Pillars of the Earth, Watership Down, Gone With the Wind, Clan of the Cave Bear (though not any of its pointless, smutty sequels- unless of course you happen to like pointless smut!) The DaVinci Code, The Secret History, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which is sci-fi, not fantasy, there is a difference!) and Cold Mountain. Also Sarum and Russka by Edward Rutherford. And anything by Jane Austen. Um, that's enough to get started with; I'll add more as I continue to read new ones and/or remember old favorites.

Them's the facts, folks.

I would just like to say that I proudly support Pedro for President. Pedro offers you his protection: VOTE FOR PEDRO!

Okay, quick lesson for other Draco fans/authors from an English major (actually, grad student now), concerning the term blond/blonde. Few people know this, but blond is a "gendered" word. Think of the name Gabriel/Gabrielle. One is a boy's name, one is a girl's name- savvy? Blond/blonde is the same way. Draco is blond. If he had a twin sister, she'd be blonde. Reading about Draco's blonde hair just bugs the holy hell out of me! So I figured I'd put this in my bio and maybe all of five people would read it. Muah! THIS JUST IN: I even found canon proof of the blond/blonde rule, for any doubters out there; it's on page 101 of GoF (American edition, I don't know if that makes any difference)- the quote is as follows: "Harry and Draco Malfoy had been enemies ever since their very first journey to Hogwarts. A pale boy with a pointed face and white-blond hair, Draco greatly resembled his father. His mother was blonde too; tall and slim, she would have been nice-looking if she hadn't been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under her nose." SEE? Rowling is hip to the rule! WooHoo!

(7-18-05) Just finished HBP! Am now taking a deep, shaky breath and beginning the recovery phase. Think it will be at least 2-3 more weeks before I put up the VE epilogue or anything else. I have a lot of new canon to digest! Holy shiznit- what did ya'll think? Needless to say, all of my stories have been rendered officially AU by the startling conclusion of that book. Which I bought, by the way, at a midnight launch party I attended with Alex25- see our joint profile page for all the lurid details; it's listed among my favorite authors!

(9-11-05) GOD BLESS AMERICA.

(10-28-05) VALENTINE ENCOUNTER IS DONE! WOOOOOO HOOOOOO! Another loose end tied up! What a great feeling! Now the only work in progress I have left is Bermuda's Triangle, the Snape/Hermione fic I'm co-authoring with Alex25 under our joint pen-name, "Kyra and Alex". Check it out... SSHG isn't all that different from D/Hr really... those Slytherin men, they rock my socks!

11-21-05 HOLY MOLY! Did the fouth movie rock, or did the fourth movie ROCK? I thought it was as good as the first three combined! Sure there were a few scenes missing but in my opinion it stayed absolutely, positively, one hundred percent true to the spirit of the book... and honestly, that's about the best a movie can aspire to do. And the company I saw it with could not be beat! The girls from my college were even more gung-ho into it than I was- they insisted we get there by 8pm (for the Thursday night midnight screening) to get first place in line... and the funny thing was, we still weren't first in line! There was a group of about half a dozen forty-somethings in front of us eating pizza on the sidewalk in full wizarding regalia- velvet robes and capes and wands and brooms... made us look pretty tame by comparison, lol! Alex and I actually skipped out on a lot of the waiting... we came waltzing back just as the movie was about to start... and OMFG the rest is history! Great movie. Great, great movie. I don't say that about every HP movie, either. I was and remain pretty disappointed in PoA... so I was all the more excited about this one by comparison. Will definitely see again in the theater... hopefully IMAX!

(11-25-05) Status: Stuffed with Turkey. Gotta love Mama's home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner!

(12-15-05) HI MAUREEN, YOU SILENT, SNEAKY LURKER!

(1-1-06) Happy New Year, everyone! I just put up the first chapter of my first SS/HG fic, called "Worth Waiting For". Check it out! Smut alert!

(3-6-06) Hey, this is so cool- Valentine Encounter is in the process of being translated into German (with my full knowledge and consent) right here on FFN! The author who's doing it is named Talvi so look her up and shoot a review her way if you read German- or even if you don't- because it has to be a LOT of work to translate such a long and involved story, so she deserves all the reviews she can get.

(3-16-06) A quick shout-out to Lisa; HI CUZ! It's beyond cool that there's another fanficcer in the family! ;-) Why didn't we ever talk about this sooner? And a super big thank-you to Alex for the super-duper awesome Batman birthday party! I still can't believe I had a Batman party at last... I've been cracking up thinking about it for days.

(1-26-07) Well, back to the grad school grind this week. But the end is in sight! I can hardly believe that I will have a Master's degree in May! You know what's the weirdest thing? Since I'm getting my Master's in the same subject that I got my Bachelor's in, I really don't feel like I've learned anything new at all since getting my BA. There are just longer papers, and more of them. But SSSHHH... for God's sake don't tell my professors I said that!! So guess what? Some kind soul nominated my story Sacrifice in three different categories over at the Dangerous Liasons D/Hr fic awards, which you can find here: http://dangerous.rendezv0us.org/ Sacrifice was nominated under the categories of best drama/angst, best first kiss, and best Draco characterization. But when the mod sends out the email that you've been nominated, she doesn't disclose who did the nominating - so since I don't know whom to thank, I'll just say thank you here and hope that kind soul happens to see it. Whoever you are, thanks for the nominations! Here's a big smiley just for you - :o)

(2-10-07) Just put up chapter 1 of my newest project, "Unanswered", a ficlet written for this year's DMHG Valentine's Day fic exchange, which can be found here: http://community.livejournal.com/dmhgficexchange/ there are loads of great Dramione Valentine-themed stories there, mine included, so check it out. It might get you in the mood to have a happy Valentine's... or not, as there's quite a bit of angst floating around over there as well, again, mine included. Oh yeah, and the ratings there don't stop at M the way they do here; they go right up to NC17, so hell, I'm nobody's momma, but you know whether you're of age to be reading that stuff, so act accordingly!

(3-1-07) Just felt another earthquake - 2.8 on the Richter Scale. I felt one last Friday, too, and several in December. Asked hubby what it all means, and he said it means it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. Something's coming - just hope the "Big One" holds off until I get my Master's degree in May - then we're off to Washington State, if all goes according to current plan. So when California sinks into the sea, we won't be here! Just... um... most of our family and friends :( In other news, a new chapter of "Ties That Bind" will go up either tomorrow (March 2) or a week from tomorrow (March 9). It will not be the chapter in which the proverbial sh-t hits the proverbial fan. It will, however, be the chapter before the chapter in which the proverbial sh-t hits the proverbial fan! ;-)

(4-17-07) Oh my freaking God, writing a Master's thesis sucks! I don't want to discourage anyone from doing it, but be prepared to pull your freaking hair out! Funny how writing 50 pages of fanfic can come so easy to me, but writing a 50-page research paper... well. You're not allowed to swear on these profile pages, so I'm not gonna say anymore about it at present - you get the picture, I'm sure. I am afraid that there will not be any updates to anything until at least mid-May - I walk on May 12th :o) But until then I am just swamped - Swamped, I say. I keep telling myself that there's less than a month left to freedom and that I'll get through it because I always do... and the only alternative is to not graduate and that's no freaking alternative at all... but send luck and karma and good thoughts my way, okay??

(6-30-07) Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who sent well wishes my way as I struggled through the last few weeks of grad school and the ordeal of writing, and revising, and revising, and revising, and @#& REVISING my thesis! I got so many words of encouragement and support and I know that I didn't respond personally to everyone who messaged me because I was just so swamped and exhausted, but it really did mean the world to me and all the good thoughts and karma paid off, because I have a Master's Degree now!! I still can hardly believe it... I don't feel highly edubacated, I just feel like... me. With a Master's Dregree! Weird. Anyway, thanks a million - again.

(8-30-07) Well, one interstate move and new job later, my computer's finally hooked back up and I've been working on the latest chapter of TTB for a couple of days now! That's not to say that it will be up tomorrow, or even next week, but for those who have expressed concerns about it, it's coming, I promise! I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank my friend Maureen for allowing me to use her laptop over the past couple of weeks, so as to at least be able to check reviews every day - not to mention that other tiny little thing of keeping a roof over my head, and my husband's, while we searched for housing! Thanks Ree! And speaking of reviews, here's a few words for the person who anonymously reviewed Lovely Delirium and said my writing style needs a lot of work because it contains long sentences and creative use of punctuation; That is my style, genius, and if you don't care for it you're entitled to your opinion but there are hundreds upon hundreds of other reviewers out there who like it just fine so I think I'll stick with the popular consensus, thanks. Here's a newsflash, too; I'm writing these stories for adults, or at the very least, literate teenagers. I'm not writing "See Dick Run. Run, Dick, Run." So I'm sorry if long sentences confound you. Please do come back when you can keep up. Oh, and just for the record? I'm not a grad student anymore. I've got my Master's Degree. Once you've got yours, I might be more receptive to writing tips from you. But, uh, I'm not holding my breath. Tootles!

(12-06-07) Awesome news! I was just notified that Valentine Encounter has won the Dramione Award for Best Completed Epic! Thank you thank you thank you to whoever nominated and voted for my fic! I'm super excited and I can't wait to see my award banner :o) Also - to those who are waiting for an update on TTB. Here's the scoop; the next chapter IS written! There's a problem, of course. I wrote it on my laptop during my interstate move, when I had no access to the desktop computer because it was in about a million pieces in the trunk of my car. The laptop has since crashed. Isn't that always the freaking way of it? So I'm waiting on hubby to fix it with no real idea when that will happen, but I'm not ready to rewrite yet because for me, rewritten chapters are never as good as the originals. Not even spitting distance. So I'm holding out hope that maybe, maybe the laptop will be salvaged and the next chapter up by the new year. So anyway, that's the reason for the delay. Also, I'm working on a little SSHG one-shot as a Christmas gift for my friend Alex (shhh, don't tell her - I don't think she reads this page anymore so hopefully my secret's safe) who's gone abroad for a long, lo-o-o-o-ong time and who I miss terribly. So for those of you who like that ship, look for that in the near future. For those of you who don't... just pretend it's Draco, which is what a whole bunch of reviewers for Worth Waiting For said they did anyway! ;o)

(6-21-08) New Avatar and Reprieve from Writer's Block: Yes, I'm updating again, hooray!! I haven't been able to stop writing lately, especially on Ties, though I think it was actually my new pink cell phone and my fic called MargaritaVille that got my creative juices flowing again. Whatever it was, I'm enjoying it and I hope you're enjoying the outcome, which so far has been several updates over the past few weeks. I've got my fingers crossed that this streak of inspiration will see TTB out through the end. Then, I thought I'd mention the fact that I changed my avatar to a sketch of Draco and Hermione I did a couple of years back. It's funny because in my mind I was seeing the scene from "Sometimes" in which she's dying in his arms on the school's front steps; he's removed his shirt and put it on her, which is why the sleeves are too long. But when I came across it just recently and decided to stick it up, I saw the two of them from VE, in which she was also wearing a black shirt and he was also shirtless, having ripped his own to shreds to make bandages. Weird, huh? It could be either, and I never realized that until just now. Anyway I did the sketch freehand based on the death of Eponine from Les Miserables. I found a passable version of it over on You Tube, which I recommend checking out if you've got a couple of minutes to kill. For those who don't know the story, she's been in love with him (Marius) forever. He sees her as a friend, albeit a good one, and is in love with someone else. There's a battle going on and she's been refusing to leave his side (Eponine, that is - the far inferior girl he's in love with is off somewhere packing to hightail it out of town) and although he's not -strictly speaking- in love with her, he doesn't want to see her hurt, so he invents an errand to get her out of the way. He sends her (this is angst I couldn't even think up on my own) to deliver a farewell love letter to the other girl. She goes, because there is nothing she wouldn't do for him. After having delivered it, however, instead of staying away from the battleground as he'd intended, she returns to his side once more, getting fatally shot in the process. That's where the You Tube video picks up. Now, bear in mind this is the scenario as it was presented in the Broadway musical (which I've seen 4 or 5 times already and hope to see at least as many times more in my life). Her death in the book is ever angstier - in the book he doesn't really care about her at all, and yet she actually throws herself in front of him and takes the bullet for him, and as she's dying he's asking her about the other girl; was she okay? Did she have a return message for him? Also, he's thinking to himself that it's really kinda gross the way she's spitting up blood and he's wishing she'd just get it over with and die already because she's making a mess all over his clothes. Talk about wanting to jump into the pages of a book and tear a character apart bare-handed! The musical version, while still tragic, has a bittersweet quality that makes it infinitely prefereable, at least to me. You can see it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iYksmP3glvw&feature=related

(8-16-08) Another story complete and a nomination at the Quibbler Awards: So yay, MargaritaVille's done! That was a fun little ficlet, still can't believe it was inspired by a cell phone! Not that I would ever mention a cell phone in a Harry Potter fic (shudders) I can't stand stories that introduce technology like "wizarding IM"... Yuck! But that's just me, hey, whatever floats your boat. And then some kind soul has nominated "Unanswered" over at the Quibbler Awards. This is a brand-new award site for Harry Potter fanfics that is currently accepting nominations for their first-ever round of awards. So if you'd like to nominate a story, check out the nominees, or vote (FOR ME!! Hem hem) you can find the site here: quibbler.this-paradise.com it's a cool concept so let's give them some support and help them succeed :o) A word to the wise - this site is not Dramione-centric. There are fics there that feature a variety of pairings including both het and slash. Just wanted to be clear on that; there are many Dramione fics nominated there, but a wide variety of others as well. Not that I mind that - variety is the spice of life! (except when applied to wizarding text-messaging in poorly written fics. Okay MAJOR pet peeve. Not as major as poorly written adoption fics, but still up there.) Just wanted everyone to know what to expect! Go and enjoy. Nominate. Vote. Happy reading! ;o)

(8-29-08) Cool beans! "Sacrifice" has been nominated at the Quibbler Awards too! :o) "Unanswered" was nominated in the best het category, "Sacrifice" was nominated in the best fanon category, and they're both nominated in the best angst category! Nominations are closed now, but the voting is open (hint hint!) And there's tons of great stories to read in all ships, genres and ratings. Definitely worth checking out - the link is in my 8-16 post, just above this one.

(12-31-08) Well, Happy New Year, y'all! If I'm going to be honest I have to say that 2008 has been kind of a shit year for me. I started it out recuperating from ankle surgery. We bought a house that's now probably worth less than we paid for it thanks to the housing market crash. My husband had an affair. And yesterday I learned that my brother has cancer, and a 5 year life expectancy if the chemo doesn't work. He's 27. So whoever you are, wherever you are, I'd be so grateful if you could send some good vibes my way! I need them making my way into this new year. Thanks.