About
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Hi! I'm Zachary Kai: 20-something, queer (he/him,) and neurodivergent. I love reading, making, learning, listening to music, and traveling. I write fiction about a life in the stars.
I'm actively seeking new remote work opportunities! Here's my CV/resume. If I'd be a good fit for your organization or project, contact me.
I'm Australian, and oscillate between living there and overseas. Now? I'm in North Macedonia.



Photo Credits --- Left: Gizem Akkaya | Right: Roberto Pettinau
For my official bio, catalog, FAQs, offerings, press, and publications, visit Lunaseeker Press.
Avatars
I've created these to represent myself with picture makers: for fun's sake. After all, why else?




More About Me
I run group workshops on drawing in company, creative writing, worldbuilding, and zine-making (which you can book!)
I refuse to die without making something useful and I aim to make a positive difference in the life of creative queer folk through words.
If I choose one word to describe myself besides queer, it's 'generalist.' My many skills include:
- Amateur knitting in practice, advanced knitting in theory.
- Amateur gardening: repotting, watering, weeding.
- Backstage crewing for theatre productions: being a stagehand, bumping in/out, making props, microphone management, set construction, spiking, sound. I've done six shows, and hopefully will do many more.
- Encyclopedic yet hyperspecialized knowledge: in consumer technology history, pop culture, and the Star Wars universe.
- Recipe improvisation: I can create a meal with anything you have in the fridge and pantry.
- Shoddy hand sewing.
Timeline
- 2015: First fiction story: fanfic for an obscure webcomic.
- 2017: First novel, NaNoWriMo: One Moonlit Night (58k words.)
- 2018: Entered the Jolley Prize. Second novel: Chrysanthemum Throne (72k words.)
- 2019: Entered the Jolley Prize again.
- 2020: Published my first book: the first of The Mara Files.
- 2021: Sought reviewers for The Mara Files. Started rewriting + expanding it.
- 2022: Finished rewriting Mara's Awakening. Emailed previous reviewers.
- 2023: Rewrote + published Mara's Choice. Published Mara's Reckoning.
- 2024: Started this site, began Don't Burn Too Bright, and transitioned from publishing as Leo Flynn to writing under my real name, Zachary Kai.
Tidbits
- As long as I'm typing in text or markdown files, I'm happy.
- According to various quizzes, I'm a carrot, a
section
element with a nestedp
element. - Adore the history, culture, and the art of making food. Still, I prefer subsisting on veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes, and tofu.
- Always listening to music. Despite listening to my favorite songs thousands of times, I hardly grow tired!
- I alphabetize (almost) everything when organizing.
- I'm fluent in English and speak intermediate (mostly Mexican) Spanish.
- I've visited Australia, Japan, Mexico, Moldova, Romania, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, The Netherlands, Turkey, and the UK.
- Love the smell of coffee, can't stand the taste.
- Saw A New Hope in 2015 and it changed everything.
- Started sending letters, art, and ephemera to strangers in 2020, and I haven't stopped. Some of my dearest friends are penpals.
- The internet is my livelihood, friendships, joys, curiosities... Without it, who am I?
- Though I'm Australian, I write using American spelling, and British punctuation.
Wants
A list of intentions, desires, and dare I say goals. Inspired by the lovely Keenan and Katherine.
- To write indiscriminately, often, and with my whole self.
- To travel to Central and South America.
- To cultivate friendships a little longer than fleeting.
- To email everyone about everything I've ever loved.
- To see a beloved band live, in all their human glory.
- To fall in love with the world (over and over again).
- To make poetry without succumbing to a terrifying fear.
- To help make the poetic web.
- To read everything beautiful I can get my hands on.
- To wonder at existence and all within it.
- To live without shame.
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