Karisa DeLay

Sep 26

KARISA DELAY IS A MULTI-TALENTED ARTIST AND AUTHOR in the vast world of published novelists. However, she has an intuitive passion for how the perceptions of man toward a deity-driven creation, evolution, and science can wring human reality. Through her first two fiction novels, Crystal Gate and Four Rivers, she vividly constructs an intriguing theme for readers, taking them on an ancient treasure hunt that leads the Devil back to Eden. In 2018, she released her first non-fiction series titled, Before the World Was Lost; A Journey to Eden, built on the research from her first two fiction novels. With help from archeologists in Bosnia and Australia and engineers from America and Serbia, Karisa brings new theories about where the world began, where an ancient boat landed after the flood, the purpose of building a tower in Babel, and how radiocarbon dating works with Genesis.

When Karisa isn't writing fiction or exploring the deeper parts of our overlapping world, she is following her military husband around the globe, raising their daughters, working part-time as a senior Aveda stylist, finishing two bachelor's degrees from Arizona State University in Religious Studies and Anthropology, and enjoying the beaches of the Gulf Coast.

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Follow Karisa on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, or visit her Blog to see where her mind will take you next.

What inspired you to become an author?

As a child, I spent a lot of time with friends or cousins reenacting movies like Outsiders, Ghostbusters, and Star Wars, to name a few. To fall asleep at night, I would continue my imaginary adventures by playing out movies, concerts, or life situations, in which I was a character. However, growing up, my art appeared more in my head or painted on canvas. I did not love writing the stories in my head until 2011, when a vivid dream wouldn't leave my mind. That was the birth of my first book series and the ignited passion for the art of personal penmanship in the world of novels.

Since then, I have dabbled in blogging, non-fiction, and a new crime thriller. I've also created a google doc for all the ideas that have flooded my mind now that I have taken a backseat to being a full-time stylist to focus more on my writing.

So to answer the question, I inspired myself to write after the universe sent me a lingering dream. And I've found when you follow that higher power, fiction or not, where you end up will be worth it.

What are your books about?

My first two books, Crystal Gate and Four Rivers, are a series duology that follows a dream I had back in December 2011. In this series, the main character Alexis Zen is a quantum physicist working at Wright Patterson Air Force Base (don't worry, it's written so readers understand the science), and she is met with an ancient secret handed down through the women in her family. After the gates of Eden were sealed, Eve took with her a piece of crystal that unlocked the knowledge to reset the garden, where the Devil was cursed. Now, the Devil and Alexis will come face to face, unknowingly setting into motion the metaphorical chains that will bind evil on Earth. This series has many elements of good and evil. It explores locations around the globe where strange phenomena are said to occur and the fringe science that investigates them. Also, characters will trek through multiple dimensions, including that of angels, plus a visit from an extraterrestrial sort.

These first two books have a hidden map that the characters discover, and that research later led to my first blog post. From that blog post in 2013, and a call from MUFON, my third book and first non-fiction was created. Before The World Was Lost: A Journey To Eden explores the data from my fiction series and furthers the finds to other locations outside of Eden, including the building and later landing spot of the ark, the Tower of Babel. This short 152-page book is not a claim to being the authority on matters mentioned, but rather the findings after noticing a pattern in overlaps. In the back of the book, I listed the archaeologist, and scientists consulted to verify plausible theories I introduce throughout. This book led me to work on going back to college to get my degrees in Religious Studies and Anthropology. In doing so, it has strengthened, not changed, my original theories to produce a future follow-up later.

What are you working on now?

After a long stint of not writing, I have decided to pick back up a book I started in 2014 called Kanvased. The premise of this plot initially came from my oldest daughter, who asked me to write it. It has evolved into an entire storyline filled with suspenseful twists, a network of corruption, and serial murders staged like pieces of art. This book will have two sections in the back dedicated to Rebecca Hanes, my aunt who lost her life to a serial killer when I was 17. And my childhood best friend, Brian Shaffer, who later went missing in 2006.