Mountain Brook 5th grader publishes her book online

Mountain Brook resident Karma Kilgore is a newly published author whose work of short fiction, “The Red Realm,” is available for purchase online at Amazon.

Not only that, she’s only in fifth grade at Brookwood Forest Elementary.

Kilgore said she has a real passion for the craft.

“I love to write,” she said. “It’s like reading a really good book, where it feels like you know the characters and are in the book with them. That’s what it feels like when I’m writing, but even better because you get to choose the plot, characters and setting.”

“Karma is an avid reader and has a vivid imagination,” said her mother, Christina Kilgore. “Even before she could read and write, we would take turns making up part of the same story and sometimes the stories got very silly.”

Kilgore said she worked on the “The Red Realm” for about two years but that it came to fruition after she took part in the annual Art Expressions contest at school.

Last school year, “The Red Realm” won first place at the school and district level for the fourth grade in the creative writing category, said Banyon Allison, who is Kilgore’s father.

Kilgore plans to follow up “The Red Realm” with several other stories in the Rainbow Series.

She does not think she will choose a writing career, at least not a full-time one.

“As much as I love writing, when I grow up I want to be a pilot or an astronaut,” she said.

“But as a side job I definitely want to write.”