Hey folks!

We’re barely a month away from the release of my next book, A Dark Hole Darkly, and if you’ve been paying attention to these newsletters, you already know a lot about it:

It’s a contemporary mystery, comedic and “postmodern” (more about that one of these days) and neurodivergent AF.

(Someone told me to say that. I’m not sure what the “AF” stands for. “Adult fiction”, maybe?)

Pre-order links available here.

Today, I’d like to talk about a piece of this that I haven’t dwelled as much on yet.

(Probably. I dunno. I have ADHD, so there’s always a small possibility that I’ve devoted five newsletters to this topic already and forgotten about it.)

Anyway, today’s topic is… Newsletters!

(Also, it was in the subject line, so don’t go getting too swelled a head for guessing.)

(I promise no more parentheticals for at least three paragraphs.)

So. Newsletters. This is a newsletter. Today. In 2025. An email sent to some folks who’ve opted-in. Ostensibly to receive news. (Or whatever this is.) (Shit.) (Does it not count because I didn’t start a new paragraph?) (It doesn’t?) (It doesn’t count or it DOESN’T doesn’t count?) (Nevermind.) Anyway. That is what this is.

But back before the internet, newsletters were physical things, sent through the physical mail. Printed. Stapled. Folded. Stamped. Some came from authors probably, some came from your relatives with the latest scoop on what your distant cousins were up to, and some came from fan clubs, pulling together news items, fan fiction, art, and upcoming events.

Doctor Who. Star Trek. A third sci-fi franchise probably, but I don’t like doing research.

Yes, before the internet, websites were just mail.

For a while in the late 80s/early 90s, my mom and a friend ran the newsletter for a Jon Pertwee fan club. He was one of the Doctors Who. (Doctors who what?) (Shut up, parentheticals. You’re dead to me.) My mom did a lot of original art for it:

She also wrote stories and songs for the newsletter. Went to cons. Met Jon Pertwee and a lot of the other actors. Shared letters back and forth. Even went to visit them in the UK.

It was the 80s/90s version of… well…

Of just following John Scalzi on Bluesky, I guess?!?

What I’m saying is that everything was a lot more work back then.

A Dark Hole Darkly is, without giving the whole thing away, a bit of a love-letter to that era of fandom. Before the internet. Before things were easy. When everything felt smaller and more intimate. When websites were printed, stapled, folded, and stamped.

When family secrets left a paper trail.

When our sins couldn’t be deleted with a keystroke.

But. Like. With jokes and stuff.