K. E. Andréa

The Short

Who:  Me.

What:  Fledgling author, budding martial artist, and NASA flight controller.

Where: Texas

When: 1982 in icy, sleeting weather

Why:  Because I said so.

How: With duct tape, WD40, and ziplock bags.

Lair:  My life, my love, and miscellaneous stuff about the site.

Crunchy Knights: Stuff about work.  Hey, a dragon’s gotta make a living.  Eating knights seems just as good a job as any.

Hoard Thieves: Stuff that makes dragons grumpy. Nobody likes a hoard thief.

Shiny Objects: Cool things I like… Because they’re shiny!

Tails: Stuff about my writing

The Long

I am an engineer, flight controller, and mathematician by vocation; a writer and artist by hobby. I am a martial artist in training, a dabbler in foreign languages, a scientist fascinated by the world and how it works, and a woman who chooses to aspire beyond the limits imposed by her hair color and gender.  If I want something, I find a way, even if it is not by the conventional methodology.  I am living my childhood dreams, married to the love of my life, and always trekking down the path to my next adventure.

I grew up in Texas, and excelled in school until my learning disabilities began to impact my education.  I was diagnosed with ADHD, as well as learning disabilities in mathematics and spelling.  I was told I would never do math or learn to spell as well as the other children.  I decided I was going to do it anyway.

I’ve always been skilled at writing last minute A papers, and I provide grammar insight to my writer’s group where I can.  I went to college and successfully completed a B.S. in Mathematics, and will have an M. S. in Systems Engineering in December 2012.  I’ve studied Spanish and Japanese, and though the years have significantly depleted my fluency in these foreign languages I plan to get back into Japanese when I have more time.  I studied Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering as part of my elective courses to expand some of my knowledge to applied sciences instead of pure math.

I stated working at NASA at 24 as a flight controller (though the job title is “Engineer”).  Working in mission control was my childhood dream job (besides paleontologist and astronaut of course 😉 ), and I am proud to say I achieved what I set out to do.  I have been writing and cartooning since I was a child, and recently decided it was time to bring some of those characters to life in a novel.  I also am a sketch artist and avid video game lover in my free time, though with school I have not had much of that lately.

I am married to my high school sweetheart, and through him I have found some order to my chaos. Next year will be the biggest step in our relationship:  kids!  I am, of course, terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought in this regard, but consider it a worthwhile endeavour.  I know he will make a good father, and hope that I will be a worthy mother.

I have been training in aikido since September 2010.  I’m told that I can take the class while pregnant so long as I cut out the ukemi (falling) portions of the art, but a large part of learning is taking the fall, so I hope to achieve Shodan (black belt) by next May when we plan to start our family.  My husband, sister and I take the class together.

This blog is broken down into sections to talk about my personal life and my blog (Lair), NASA and my job at Johnson Space Center (Crunchy Knights), my writing (Tails), and interesting or things I come across (Shiny Objects).  In truth I started out intending to post only about my book trilogy, but found that I had much more to say, and so I started blogging about NASA and sharing my insights in other fun things.  I’m considering adding a “Hoard Thieves” section at some point in the future to talk about things I DON’T like (like roaches) as I feel inspired to blog about them. As my writing expands, I’ll probably have to break down and make sub sections for each book (or series) but no need to get fancy just yet.

I have a love and affinity for dragons, and have long used the user name “Kiwi Dragoness” to describe myself, though there are others I use.  I decided shortly after I made my blog that I was going to use this little pseudonym for it, though I plan to publish under K. E. Andrea. The Kiwi Dragoness herself will receive cameos in all of my books as I go along in some fashion or another.

I try to keep my posts educational and fun, and appreciate comments and typo corrections. 🙂