Western Work
Through the 1990s, Kirkeby worked primarily as a heavy equipment operator, carrying forward the practical, hands-on life he had known from ranching, farming, and the woods.
Author Bio
About M.A. Kirkeby
Stories shaped by hard country, old gods, strange roads, and the question of what people become when the unseen world looks back.
Author of mythic and speculative fiction
The Man Behind the Myths
M.A. Kirkeby was raised on a cattle ranch in northern Nevada, where hard land, long days, working animals, weather, isolation, and old stories shaped the way he sees character and conflict. Until the age of twenty-seven, he worked as a cowboy and farmer, learning the rhythm of ranch life, the patience of hard labor, and the kind of humor that survives when life refuses to be easy.
That background still runs through his fiction: people tested by harsh places, stubborn loyalties, difficult choices, rough-edged friendships, and characters who must decide what they are willing to carry for the people they love.
Along the way, Kirkeby also spent time working in the Montana woods, adding another layer of mountain weather, timber country, and western grit to the landscapes that would later find their way into his stories.
Roads, Work, and Far Places
A Life Shaped by Distance
Before turning fully toward fiction, Kirkeby lived a working life that crossed industries, countries, deserts, ice, and borders.
Security & Systems
In the 2000s, he worked for himself and started two security installation and maintenance companies, including one in California’s Coachella Valley.
Leaving California
After leaving California, Kirkeby used his job skills and certifications to choose work that would let him see more of the world and live outside ordinary boundaries.
From the South Pole to Scandinavia
One Long Road Home
From 2017 to 2025, M.A. Kirkeby traveled extensively for work and life. He spent a year at the South Pole stations — one long night and one long day — and later spent several years working in Baghdad, Iraq. During that same season of life, he traveled widely through Europe and took a position at a military base in Poland.
His travels through Scandinavia deepened his connection to the lands of his ancestors and to the old stories, beliefs, and cultural memory that now shape much of his fiction. During this time, he married his sweetheart and soulmate in Sweden.
After years of travel, work, distance, and the long legal process of navigating the United States immigration system, all roads finally led back to Montana. After three years of effort, Kirkeby was able to bring his Swedish family to Montana, where they now live with their bilingual dog, Elsa.
What All of This Brings to the Fiction
Kirkeby’s books draw from a life spent around cattle, machinery, harsh weather, remote places, military bases, foreign cities, long travel, family separation, and the stubborn hope of finally coming home.
He writes about gods and monsters, but also about fathers, husbands, workers, wanderers, survivors, and people who keep going when the road becomes strange.
Faith, Myth, and Story
The Old Gods and the Human Heart
An avid practitioner of Ásatrú, Kirkeby writes with a deep love for Norse gods, rugged landscapes, ancient questions, and the enduring strength of family, honor, fate, mercy, and defiance.
His stories often begin where the ordinary world cracks open: a warrior shows mercy and draws the attention of gods, ancient figures stumble into the modern world, machines reach into memory and grief, or hidden things move beneath familiar streets.
Across genres, his work returns to the same core questions: What makes a person worthy? What does loyalty cost? What survives exile, distance, war, faith, humor, and loss? And what happens when powers greater than ourselves finally look back?
Writing Worlds
What He Writes
Kirkeby’s work moves between mythic fantasy, supernatural comedy, alternative history, psychological science fiction, and gritty stories of hidden things moving beneath ordinary life.
Norse Fantasy
Family, fate, honor, old gods, and the cost of mercy in worlds shaped by saga and storm.
The Hearthborn Saga →Modern Mythic Heroes
Ancient figures, modern trouble, humor, culture clashes, demons, and supernatural misadventures.
Odin and Jesus →Science Fiction
Strange frontiers, salvage crews, psychological futures, and technologies that reach into human pain.
Science Fiction →