Better known as khalling, one of our most active Gulchers, and the coauthor of Pendulum of Justice, is Kaila Halling. Thanks to Kaila for taking a minute to tell us about Ayn Rand’s influence on her life, her passions, and her favorite Ayn Rand book.

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QUICK FACTS

Favorite Ayn Rand book: The Fountainhead
Favorite Ayn Rand character: Francisco, but a huge crush on Ragnar

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Q & A

* When were you first introduced to Ayn Rand?
In college. I was a bridesmaid in a wedding and the best man chided me for being an English major who had never heard of Ayn Rand. He was so cocky and self-assured that I was irritated. So a friend and I began peppering him questions about her novels and Objectivism. I was annoyed and appalled that she promoted selfishness as a virtue! I remember him laughing and taking all of our questions one by one until we exhausted ourselves from the discussion. Two years later, the best man became my husband.

* How has Ayn Rand influenced your life?
There have been times when Objectivism has been more important in my life than others. I was raised that emotions trumped [everything]. I have to consciously work on reason and rational thinking as a foundational tenet of my life. When I look at times of conflict and rocky roads in my life, there is almost always a common thread of emotion guiding my thinking. Obviously, during the happiest, most productive times in my life it has been because I was exercising my unique human trait of being a rational animal.

"If a man takes his emotions as the cause and his mind as their passive effect, if he is guided by his emotions and uses his mind only to rationalize or justify them somehow—then he is acting immorally, he is condemning himself to misery, failure, defeat, and he will achieve nothing but destruction—his own and that of others." AR, Playboy Interview

* What passion project are you working on now?
My passion is writing thrillers that celebrate the productivity and inventiveness of man. My husband and I are a writing team. We like a flavor of justice in our novels. Pendulum of Justice, our first thriller, came out in September. We are currently writing the second novel in the Hank Rangar series with the working title Trails of Injustice.

As well, I am passionate about Galt's Gulch Online. You all can deduce that! It is a passion and joy to meet people from all over the world who have seen the movies and found this site, like I did a little over a year ago, and discover the philosopher and writer Ayn Rand. I never tire of producers sharing the same sense of life as myself who had no idea that this amazing thinker developed a philosophy around this sense of life---celebrating the productivity of exceptional individuals and the power of reason and logic. Yes, Virginia, the world really is A is A.

I am in a unique and exciting place in my life. My kids are grown, (my daughter is currently a production assistant for the ASIII movie), and we decided that we had enough of the US. You could say we "galted," but I am not sure a gulch can exist outside of one's mind. Like many before us, we went to where we could find more de facto freedom and happiness. I now have time to focus on my writing and to help educate others about how the US is seriously ill. They have lost so many of the economic freedoms they were founded on, and we're not going to take it anymore.

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ON THE WEB

Buy "Pendulum of Justice": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491264...
Visit khalling's blog: http://www.hallingblog.com

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