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R. M. Kiser is a storyteller from Kingsport, Tennessee, whose fiction finds people who are hurting, questioning, or quietly searching for something true. Writing began as an anniversary gift for his wife of nearly 31 years; after her passing in 2025, the stories kept coming. She is somewhere in all of them. His work spans mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, faith-based parables, and a foster-care series. A father to a son adopted from foster care, his work promises presence, not resolution

[rmkiserauthor]

I brought you somewhere different today.

The Echo Rewritten is built around a city called Bridgefall, where memory isn't a choice — walls hold it, streets hold it, nothing gets to move on.

I went looking for a place that felt like that — old enough to have opinions about its own history, quiet enough that you'd notice if you stood still.

Is there a place that's always felt like it was holding onto something?

Available now: https://rmkiser.com/books/the-echo-rewritten

#RMKiser #Fantasy #EpicFantasy #TheEchoRewritten

[rmkiserauthor]

What community theater taught me about honest fiction. Welcome to Conversations #10. In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on my writing process and an unexpected truth I discovered under the stage lights. It completely changed how I view human nature, and it is the core reason I refuse to write characters who have all the answers. If you love stories written with emotional precision and unhurried grace, pull up a chair. Let's stay connected. Sign up for my mailing list to get monthly writing reflections, book release updates, and a free short story: https://rmkiser.com/mailing-list #RMKiser #BookTube #LiteraryFiction #TennesseeFiction #IndieAuthor #Conversations

[rmkiserauthor]

Sunday Q&A — this week I'm answering three questions: how long it actually takes to write a book, why I write about foster care and hard family stuff, and where "Stories that don't look away" actually comes from. Watch the full answers above. Got a question for next Sunday? Drop it below. #AskTheAuthor #WritingCommunity

[rmkiserauthor]

The trailer for Dust and Mercy is here — a modern Good Samaritan story set in 1959 Appalachia.

A coal company comes for Hollow Ridge one family at a time, and Eli McKinnon has to decide what he owes the people beside him when standing his ground means standing alone.

What would it cost you to stop for your neighbor?

Preorder: https://rmkiser.com/books/dust-and-mercy

#DustAndMercy #AppalachianFiction

[rmkiserauthor]

The trailer for Dust and Mercy is here — a modern Good Samaritan story set in 1959 Appalachia.

A coal company comes for Hollow Ridge one family at a time, and Eli McKinnon has to decide what he owes the people beside him when standing his ground means standing alone.

What would it cost you to stop for your neighbor?

Preorder: https://rmkiser.com/books/dust-and-mercy #DustAndMercy #AppalachianFiction

[rmkiserauthor]

Here's what actually goes into a book cover before anyone's read a single page.

For The Echo Rewritten, I wanted something that felt like memory itself — gold and amber tones, like light caught in glass, almost like time trapped inside it. Weeks of typography tests before I found something that felt right.

A cover has to signal tone and genre instantly, and carry a feeling about what's inside — all without saying anything directly. It's the first conversation the book ever has with a reader.

Has a cover ever made you pick up a book you knew nothing about?

Out now: https://rmkiser.com/books/the-echo-rewritten

[rmkiserauthor]

23 days before launch — this is the first time I'm holding Dust and Mercy as an actual book.

The proof copy showed up today, and I filmed the second I opened it. Up until now, this book only existed as a file on a screen. Holding it as something real changes how it feels — less like a project, more like it's actually about to exist in the world.

What's it like seeing something you made become real for the first time?

Preorder: https://rmkiser.com/books/dust-and-mercy

[rmkiserauthor]

What most people don't realize about Appalachian land boundaries: it was never paperwork. It was a handshake.

While writing Dust and Mercy, I researched how these boundaries used to get settled — just somebody's word about where a fence used to sit, trusted for generations.

That system worked only as long as everyone agreed to honor it. The moment someone wants something enforceable instead of trusted, it falls apart — not because anyone broke the law, but because trust stopped being enough. That's the real spine of Eli's boundary dispute in the book.

Preorder: https://rmkiser.com/books/dust-and-mercy