Imagine living in a world where humans have evolved with three magical abilities: quickened healing, sense enhancement and syphoning, or the ability to erase memories. Those who aren’t able to master all three are exiled to an island where toxins poison the air and grotesque monsters roam the mushroom forests.
Imagine the terror and the heartbreak. Imagine you are one of them.
This is the plot of “Miscreant,” a fantasy dystopia recently published by one of Utah Tech University’s alumna. Writing was not always her passion, but Kynsie Hatch—known under her pen name Kynsie Cole—has blazed her trail as a published author.
Cole tells the story of Bellanova “Nova” Darkov, a girl from the most prestigious family in all of Ghandria who has spent her entire life hiding her inability to syphon. After her secret is exposed, she’s exiled and given 60 days to master the ability or stay exiled and separated from her older brother Denali forever.
Readers will find strong familial themes surrounding Nova and the friends she meets during her exile. Similarly, a large part of her and Denali’s shared internal conflict surrounds their separation and their unbreakable relationship.
Cole said she wanted to incorporate an older brother and little sister bond to match the bond she shares with her older brother.
“I think I write about what is most meaningful to me,” she said. “That’s what comes out on the page naturally. I have five siblings and I’m super close to them.”
The book took nearly five years to complete from outline to publication, but it was an assignment in a high school creative writing class that came at the heels of her brother’s cancer diagnosis that sparked her love of writing.
“I found this control in writing that felt magical because when I couldn’t control what was going on in my life… I could create anything I wanted,” Cole said. “I went home and over the next few years, I read 10 books on how to write books. I read some of them four or five times.”
It wasn’t until 2020 that Cole decided to begin writing the novel. She was enrolled at Utah Tech as a communication studies major and began outlining her novel after the COVID-19 pandemic forced students into online classes. She said she would come home to work on the story, oftentimes into the early morning hours.
After 2 1/2 years of outlining, graduating with her bachelor’s in 2023, and two more years of writing, she finally got her name on a book, and “Miscreant” went on sale March 11, 2025. It was the No. 1 new release on Amazon when it debuted.
Cole’s time as a Trailblazer proved beneficial, as she credited connections she made at the Atwood Innovation Plaza for helping self-publish the book.
The Plaza exists to help students foster innovation and create businesses or products based on their ideas. Wayne Provost is the director of the Innovation Guidance and Solutions Center and has worked at the Plaza since 2016.
“I specialize in helping kids get proof of concept of an idea and take them to patent attorneys here in town,” he said. “I try to encourage kids to believe in themselves… [If] you got a really good idea, let’s go do something, and that’s what I did [with Kynsie].”
Cole credits Provost’s personal financial support for helping her obtain a copyright for the book. Similarly, it was through the Plaza and her internship with the Parks Project that helped her find a cover artist.
Lindsey Sorensen is Cole’s friend and co-worker who has been designing for 10 years and works as a merchandise designer for Utah State Parks.
She said she took an empathetic, user-centered approach when designing the cover and encouraged Cole to think about how she wanted readers to feel when they looked at the cover.
“[Cole] worked with an AI program to get a concept of what she wanted,” Sorensen said. “Pulling someone in like me that knew how to use the tools… I was able to take it from AI to a finished, beautiful piece that is very different from the first concept she brought in.”
Sorensen picked the gold and charcoal color scheme and incorporated gold flecks and a leather texture to bring the fantastical elements of the story to life.
At times, Cole said the writing process was lonely since she sacrificed her social life to work on the book, but she was grateful for the interaction in her classes at Utah Tech to help her divide her time evenly. The biggest lesson she’s learned throughout this journey is about passion.
“Find what you’re passionate about… and then do the work to become the best at it,” she said. “Do the work to know exactly how to do it and be the person that people go to help for.”
She left aspiring writers with this piece of advice:
“Start writing your book,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to do it and go for your dreams. What’s the worst that could happen?”
