Hello, everyone!

Firstly, thank you all SO much for the warm reception my animated “trailer” for Secondhand Origin Stories has gotten! It’s been a thrill to share this art project I’ve worked on so long.

This newsletter is going to be on the short side, because once again, I have a video to share with you. Don’t get, like, used to that. I’m not pivoting to video, but CONvergence let me have a whole hour to talk about a longstanding subject of fascination for me, and since that was recorded, I figure that’s more than enough out of me for one month. I have some ambition to write a nonfiction book on the subject eventually, once I feel like going to the trouble to get a nonfiction book agent. (If you happen to know one who might be interested, feel free to send them this video.)

You can see this subject—the mental health effects of real and speculative bodily modification—wound through my fiction work, as well. I’ve been fascinated by this for over 20 years. I started planning the presentation the Monday after CONvergence 2025, when I saw that 2026’s theme would be cyberpunk.

And on the subject of technological reliance, you will see that I have some tech issues during this presentation. Luckily, there’s no audience I trust more to roll with it than CONvergence. Mostly they seemed to find my antics amusing. I promise the bit where we’re trying to work it out at the start doesn’t go on for too long. The video editor seemed to want to set the scene, so to speak.

So, please give it a watch right here.

You can also seek my name or just browse the convention’s other offerings! I was on the Beyond Binary: Gender and Robots that’s on there as well. The Afrofuturism and Androids panel also looks really good.

For this month’s action item, please submit a comment to the MN Public Utilities Commission about running yet another oil pipeline through sacred lands. We know how this story ends—with poisoned water and treaty violations. This pipeline permit was refused before due to public outcry, and we can do it again. You can find out more about that here.

As always, thank you so much for reading, and feel free to leave a comment on the browser version of this and any of my newsletters.

Best wishes,

Lee Brontide