K. S. Nikakis

K. S. Nikakis, born Karen Simpson Nikakis in Mansfield, Victoria, is an Australian fantasy author, poet, and academic. She has worked as a secondary school teacher and TAFE lecturer, later becoming foundation head of the bachelor's degree in Writing and Publishing at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE, and holds a PhD in fantasy fiction from Victoria University. She is best known for The Kira Chronicles, a young-adult fantasy trilogy that opens with The Whisper of Leaves and continues through The Song of the Silvercades and The Cry of the Marwing, later revised into an expanded edition; she also writes the Angel Caste series. Her short fiction and poetry have been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards and the Australian Shadows Awards, reflecting a career spanning both genre fiction and scholarship on fantasy and children's writing.