Howdy howdy, friends ~ Happy New Year! In today’s installment:

1. News and appearances
2. Pep talk: Creativity is constant adolescence, and I’m sorry for that
3. Scenes from life

News and appearances

I’m teaching two virtual novel workshops in March. One will be a two-part craft intensive, and the other will be focused on first pages and query packages.

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Futurescapes

March 12–15, 2026

Honored to be faculty at Futurescapes this year, along with S. T. Gibson, P. H. Low, and other great authors and agents. We’ll workshop the first 3,500 words of your sci-fi, fantasy or horror novel, your query letter, and your synopsis in a small cohort. Futurescapes is a virtual, craft-focused workshop dedicated to speculative fiction writers, with small cohorts and in-depth feedback. Applications are currently open. I am such a huge nerd for novel openings as well as query letters, so let us see what you’re cooking!!

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Character Driven Worldbuilding (with the Enneagram and other archetypes)

On 2 Tuesdays; March 24th and 31st, 7:30pm EST.

I will be running a workshop with MetroWest Writers’ Guild. Construct worlds based on character personalities, not just the customs and evidence they leave behind. Whether you swerve from traditional ideas of worldbuilding (or keep a warren-like Notion that's only missing tacks and red string), this two part workshop will discuss creating believable characters using personality archetypes without being restrictive: building worlds to illuminate those characters, and how to create meaningful, airtight conflict, no matter the world size. We will workshop your own characters and worlds, and you'll come away with ideas on how to approach your own novel.

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Lastly, I’m honored to be starting as Fiction Editor at Orion’s Belt. Flash is one of my absolute favorite forms, and I really loved first reading last year. Orion’s Belt has already published so many poignant pieces, and I’m excited to be part of a team and publication that has so much more room to grow. More soon about submission periods this year, stay tuned!

Creativity is constant adolescence, and I’m sorry for that

My sweet dog, Nuri, turned 17 this month. He is often sweet, but I say sweet in the way you are obligated and privileged to call your family members sweet, as you will soon see with this anecdote.

Nuri had off-leash privileged revoked, oh, say, two weeks into becoming my dog. He has zero recall, and the last time we got lazy and let him go for a quick nighttime pee five or six years ago, he rocketed three blocks up a hill after a coyote that was undoubtedly leading him to its lair…so the pack could eat him.

So leash is life (literally?), and we all accept this.

Until last week.

Nuri has always had a stubborn streak. It’s gotten worse as he ages. He often stops in his tracks and glares at me when he doesn’t want to move on, so firmly that his harness or collar scrunches his neck flesh over his forehead.

Last week, in direct defiance of limiting aphorisms, he learned a new trick. Instead of glaring and becoming dog-grub, he whipped his head suddenly to the side, escaped his collar, and ran off.

I am so glad he still has so much vitality at 17… ༼ʘ̚ل͜ʘ̚༽ ha ha

Anyway, the reason I’m relaying this story is because I’m trying to be an animalistic old fart, too. I am trying to learn new tricks and become a little more powerful.

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I picked out three theme words for my creative life in July 2024.

1. Ecosystems
2. 1:1
3. Dignity

They were only supposed to last a season. Well, on Tuesday, I finally felt ready to graduate to new words. I’m sure I’ll share them eventually, but for now, they’re just mine.

And this is because they scare me.

I am here trying to do my best work, in a way that I can be proud of. I wish to do right by my projects, give back to my community, and generally make a difference, leaving this place better, more equitable, more enriched. But to do more of what I’m doing, I need to change and grow.

A sampler of random things I’ve had to mature into since I picked those words in 2024:

• deciding who will be accepted/rejected for an opportunity or publication
• telling said person they are accepted/rejected 💀
• writing sexy scenes without feeling like I’m going to crawl out of my own skull
• addressing messier, more systemic experiences in my writing, that reach farther than my individual life
• trusting my prose and word choices even/especially when they’re a little weird
• working with people without continuously bracing for someone to sabotage the project or run smear campaigns about me and my compatriots
• prioritizing ‘fire’ in the work vs working my three brain cells til they overheat in lieu of real energy
• reckoning with how community does actually save; abandoning the stubborn, fear-motivated individualism this society has instilled in me all my life
• passing wisdom on without qualifiers of ‘but I’m just some guy; I’m so very sorry you have come across my opinion; please ignore me’; as wisdom was generously shared with me, I must extend the line
• not giving my opinion where it’s unhelpful, repetitive, or just for discourse’s sake

That’s not to say I’m GOOD at any of these. They are things I’ve found challenging. A lot of this has to do with responsibility and acting more ‘grown up’: trusting myself, doing my part when the need arises, even if I’m scared. I’ve failed badly at times, in ways I regret, but I am trying to be better.

It’s basically another adolescence.

I want to lay down just typing it.

I’m sure some lil angel is out there thinking, I had a grand old time in my actual adolescence!!! And we are so happy for you, dear angel. Me, I hated basically every minute of it, and am still haunted by the weird childish things I did during that time. You could not pay me to go backwards. I like that I can do wiser, kinder, higher impact things now.

11–18 was not the time in my life where I grew the most. Not even close, and not even physically—I think I missed a growth spurt somewhere. During my twenties, even here in my thirties, I distinctly remember thinking often, Wait, this is hard, I thought I was done, I thought I just had to grow one more time, I thought I was cool now. lol

Being a better creative is not all about technical improvement. Most of the things on my above sampler list have so little to do with craft, and everything to do with managing the self. It’s all a mind game, psychology.

I’ve been at this for almost 20 years. I continue to fall into this trap of thinking, wow! creativity is a parallel to life! Be brave in your work like you want to be in your life! When in reality, creativity…is…life. This perhaps comes off as melodramatic, a bit cringe. However I think we all have the temptation to cordon off our creative process as some kind of haven—as if somehow, our creative process is immune to our Little Psychological Damages, like it’s some refuge that contains only our best and highest self.

Actually, our creativity is perfectly human and freaky and probably destroying our back muscles. Our creativity is our self, expressed in a meaningful artifact for others to, in turn, experience, and let into their own lives, if the resonances all align.

That’s the kind of work I want to consume, at least: a moment in time where I get to meander through something true and stunning and meaningful from someone else’s lens.

And so I’m resigned to wading straight into this new adolescence. I am once again an awkward teen with too many shins and lots of chin zits.

But maybe this’ll be the last one ;). Maybe I will be cool after.

Scenes

I read 14 books in 2025. We’re going to move right on from that number because it depresses me. Here are a couple that I loved, in no particular order. This is not an exhaustive list, just a tiny slice off the top.

These are Bookshop.org affiliate links, just for full disclosure. Thanks for enabling my towering TBR.

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The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

I don’t really know what to say about this one, except that it’s peak winter yearning, and includes: 1) a giant lady knight who could truly crack you in half over her knee; 2) a scholarly, devoted, bespectacled coward who is not really a coward. Have a lingering chest cold? This’ll have you sighing so much and so deeply that you might just clear out those lil lungs. Go for it!

Beowulf by Maria

“Bro! ... We all know a boy can’t daddy / until his daddy’s dead.” This translation is an absolute ride!! It really captures the chest-thumping, toxic, macho vibe the original must have had when performed in some mead hall, and I have a weak spot for anachronistic historical texts. I just adore them. The word choices are absolutely delicious and surprising, and this breathes so much new life into the epic.

There There by Tommy Orange

I felt like the last person to read this beautiful, confident, leave-it-all-on-the-field book, but that is surely not true. So here it is, go read it! The narrative spirals together via the seemingly disparate perspectives of a big cast of Indigenous folks arriving to attend the Big Oakland Powwow. It’s a powerful read, and the prose is so gorgeous, enough to light the very paper of the pages on fire. The sense of completion, connection, and time in this was so lovely, and I’m very eager to read the prequel (?) Wandering Stars, which links to There There via a few characters.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang

I’m trying to read more translated work, and books like this are why. I loved the playful (yet scary) speculative premise of this book: a series of narrative meditations on humanoid beasts who live among the humans of a city. This is ultimately a work of resistance packaged in a fabulist narrative, and consumed my life for the few weeks I read it. It’s also the kind of book I immediately wanted to dissect and study, as it confidently lays out a rigid structure while subverting it with such admirable ease.

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Please enjoy a picture of my latest knitting project, and a photo of the woods.