Notes on an Island

📸: Steven Starks

October 25th, 2025

Signed paperback editions of Maple Island have been shipped to everyone who loves me the most, who ordered the book sight unseen during the presale, some of whom have been supporting me and my art for decades (go ahead and brag in the comments how long you’ve been here).

I would like to take a minute to sincerely thank you and write a little about what Maple Island means to me.

I’ve told this story before but I’ll tell it again, briefly: I’ve been working on this book about sober vampires since I, myself, got sober almost eight years ago. There have been moments in my life when the book itself kept me sober. It was almost a graphic novel and there is art from that process you will never see. Unlike other ideas I’ve had that took a while to become real (like Jojo), I was actively working on this for almost a decade.

It is a real form of grief I’m having now that it’s done.

I want to be clear: there is sex and violence and vampires and ghosts in this story, but it is not what this story is about. I have a history of people enjoying my work but not always engaging with it; I get a lot of “I loved it!” or “I really liked it!” or “I read it!” but not why or how. (I do want to say an aside to the few people over the years who have really engaged with what I do, sending over heavy messages full of insights and counterpoints and ideas I hadn’t even considered before.)

My focus has always been on accessible excellence, before I ever heard the term: I want my work to be read and felt and understood by the widest audience without compromising the deep emotion and subtle themes and complex concepts that everyone deserves regardless of reading ability. This was true of Them, my first book; it continues to be true of Maple Island, my fourteenth.

In actuality, this story feels like the recipe I’ve been trying to create all along.

I’ve mentioned to anyone who will listen that I’m burnt out, because I am, because there is too much on my plate and the world is too much, too; but part of that extinguished feeling lies with finally letting this thing out into the world.

Am I nervous? Sure. Some of this — genre, content — is new for me. I don’t really let anyone read my work before I release it because, as I’ve declared countless times before, writing is my art and these books are my paintings. What painter changes his strokes because a viewer asks him to? It’s not arrogance but a very human, anti-corporate way to make these things. There isn’t a team or committee here; if you’re like “fuck A.I.” then you will love what you find when you pick up my flawed but hard-earned feelings and words.

I hope you read it and, above all, I hope you engage with it. It’s made to be engaged with. It will probably make some of you mad, make some of you cry, make some of you think, and make some of you have weird thoughts (you sickos).

It is a deeply personal work, and possibly even my most. Vampires are an obsessive species. I claim that in the book and I said that in one of my earliest days of recovery. I am a vampire. This is an explanation of my entire existence.

Maple Island: Official Playlist

October 20th, 2025

If you know anything about me, you know how much music means to me.

When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it, talking about it, sharing it, obsessing over it, consuming it whole. It inspires and infects everything I do.

That includes my books. (This goes back to my very first novella, Them, whose inclusion of Lady Gaga was actually mentioned in the Faribault Daily News review.)

Folks seem to like it when I share these (I’ve curated playlists for Cold World, The Weirdos, Brushfire, etc.), so here’s the soundtrack behind Maple Island. Some of these songs appear in the story itself; some will give you more insight into the characters, ideas and themes; some of these are straight up spoilers. But all of them were essential parts of my life and process as I wrote this book.

Enjoy, and feel free to listen to the linked playlist on YouTube.

1. Run – Collective Soul
2. Obsessed – Mallrat
3. My Blood – Twenty One Pilots
4. Kinky – bby 
5. You’re a God – Vertical Horizon
6. Yours – Now, Now
7. Stranded – Plumb
8. Making Me Crazy – Colin Bracewell
9. Wild – Troye Sivan
10. Insensitive – Jann Arden
11. Defibrillator – Mallrat
12. I Want You (Fever) – Momma
13. Whatever Forever – Ber
14. Quiver – Dora Jar
15. Hungry Eyes – Eric Carmen
16. Ankles – Lucy Dacus
17. Kiss The Rain – Billie Myers
18. Too Much – Carly Rae Jepsen
19. Never Too Much – Luther Vandross
20. Never Be The Same – Camila Cabello
21. Novocaine – The Band CAMINO
22. Color You In – Yam Haus
23. If We Were Vampires – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
24. All My Ghosts – Lizzie McAlpine
25. I Think We’re Alone Now – Tiffany
26. How Bad Do U Want Me – Lady Gaga
27. Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat – Del Water Gap
28. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover –  Sophie B. Hawkins
29. Everybody Wants Somebody – Patrick Stump
30. I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) – The 1975
31. Hands Clean – Alanis Morissette
32. Church – Fall Out Boy
33. Virtue – Mallrat

Just Can’t

October 16th, 2025

It’s been five whole years today.

I just can’t.

I’m doing totally normal things to cope: keeping myself so entirely busy with school and clubs and work and my writing career that I see “burnt out” tiny in my rear view mirror, now that I’m several towns past.

When we lose someone, we often turn to others who have lost someone to get some guidance. The people who really know will tell you: there is no path. Grieving is wildly inconsistent, which is why we build our metaphors on top of waves and rollercoasters.

Weirdly enough, though, my last five years have been defined by one consistent feeling:

I don’t miss her any less today than I did yesterday. And I don’t think I ever will.

That feels like a hard-earned universal truth to me.

And that’s all I got today. I miss you, mom. I miss your ridiculous laugh and constant humming and the way you mispronounced words and how you hugged me like you would never hug me again, because eventually that’s true for everyone.

Love you all. Be as kind and patient as you can today, and every day.

I totally understand if you just can’t, though.

Fallcon 2025

October 11th, 2025

“I love this community so much.”

I lost count of how many times I heard people say this over the weekend, but what’s one more: I love this community so much.

Thank you for having lunch with me, for inventing candy tea with me, for talking Alien and Dune and Tron with me, for sharing your lives with me, for being such extraordinary artists, for being interested in the art I make, for being interested in the person I am, for being engaging and caring and kind and funny and brilliant. The Minnesota scene is second-to-none and it’s events like this that remind us why.

I feel this way even though someone dropped a hot dog on my foot. Fully loaded.

See you all at Twin Cities Con. Prepare yourself for Maple Island.

Maple Island: In Production Now

October 7th, 2025

In fiction, vampires need to consume human blood in order to survive. In reality: it only gets them high.

October 1999. Burnsville, Minnesota. The Church of Virtue on Maple Island Road is the meeting place of two contrary groups of vampires: the Chamber of Commerce, a powerful political organization of active vampires who run the town; and the Dampers, a small community who have made the personal decision to abstain from feeding on human beings, choosing instead to gather in the basement to support one another through this unconventional lifestyle.

When a beloved Damper is brutally murdered, the two societies clash as the Dampers search relentlessly for the killer.

Dennis Vogen blurs the boundaries of genre and digs his nails deep in this transcendent story of sex, violence, obsession and power; of hunger, pain, kindness and responsibility.

Maple Island explores the heights of hope and depths of despair built into modern society.

This work has been designed for mature readers.

Maple Island is in production now for an official release on November 7, 2025.

The Blame Game

September 25th, 2025

There has been so much nonsense this week that I personally don’t believe deserves addressing.

But as the dad of an autistic child, I do have one thing to say.

I know it’s our fault.

It’s our fault that we created and brought this one-of-a-kind person into the world.

It’s our fault that we have loved him absolutely and unconditionally for everything he is.

It’s our fault that we’ve raised a brilliant and curious, funny and sweet, sometimes irritable and totally irritating young man.

You’re welcome.

You wanna know what isn’t our fault?

That we live in a country where 32% of the adult population choose hate and cruelty, embodying hypocrisy and ignorance and promoting willful miseducation.

That people have decided to leave their empathy and compassion and kindness outside in the rain.

That capitalism (especially in this late stage) has led to a world that cuts us to the bone for the sake of efficiency and productivity, where we have no time for each other; that we’re not allowed to slow down and try to understand one another, to have long conversations and deep cups of coffee together, to pull ourselves out and see the long view: that we are all different and that is to be celebrated, not filtered and distilled into mediocrity and shame.

I take the blame for everything my kid is, and I have the best fucking kid on the planet. There isn’t a hair I would change on his head; even on the days he drives me completely nuts, I look at him and think: “Gosh, I love you so much.”

Fuck this administration. This is the part where a lot of people would tell you to unfollow them if you still support the wrong team, but I want you to consider the opposite: don’t. Don’t create a smaller room than the one you have. As far as liberal-minded people go, you could do way worse than still having me in your feed.

Keep me around. I might piss you off, but I might also remind you that you have a heart in there, too. In fact, I won’t stop repeating that it’s the most important part you got.

The First

September 20th, 2025

Hey, pals. I have this sinking feeling that there are quite a few people who might misunderstand the First Amendment, but have no fear: if you read only one post about the Jimmy Kimmel situation this week, make it this one.

(I will keep my personal feelings separate but will also disclose: I am a big fan of Kimmel and he actually helped me during my recovery in a life-changing way. But that’s a different essay, which I already wrote.)

Let’s start at the top, with how Amendment I is written in the Bill of Rights:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is super straightforward, and it basically protects us from having any of our freedoms — of religion, of protest, of press, of speech — taken away from us for any reason and specifically by the government.

We often hear the phrase: “Freedom of speech but not freedom from consequence.” This is an important thing to keep in mind, and we’re going to continue with a list of things that are NOT covered by the First Amendment:

Cancel culture: people get confused by this one (and I’ve argued before that it’s not really a thing, at least by how it’s commonly perceived). This is when a group of people decide to stop supporting a person or company for whatever reason. This often happens through boycotts and protests; think Target or Bud Light. There is nothing illegal about this, and it’s actually an übercapitalistic way of telling a celebrity or brand how you really feel: with your hard-earned cash and active attention.

Getting fired from your job: a private company can legally fire an employee for a multitude of reasons, and that includes the things they say. A lot of businesses, especially in entertainment, will have contracts for employees to sign so they understand what kinds of boundaries they have on their public speech. People are free to not sign them and find work elsewhere; people are regularly fired for breaking these clauses.

Social media: again, these are all private companies, and Facebook banning you for repeatedly making the claim that vaccines cause immense ingrown anus hair is completely legal and not a violation of your rights (though your claims are often a violation of my gag reflex).

Your girlfriend getting pissed at you: people still get surprised that they have the freedom to say whatever they want and then find out that other people are allowed to feel whatever they want about those spoken words. Say it with me now: play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This perception of freedom of speech probably has a little to do with the loneliness epidemic we’re experiencing. Just an observation.

The two main things these all have in common? You don’t get imprisoned for your words, and the government is not involved.

This isn’t the case with what’s happening with Jimmy Kimmel. (I’ll include a longer explainer by Reuters below for context.) It’s no secret that Trump has been targeting his enemies for almost a decade now, and a lot of those targets have been media figures, like late night talk show hosts. He’s been threatening them (extremely publicly) for years. On Wednesday, Brendan Carr, head of the FCC (and one of the architects of Project 2025), called out and threatened the broadcasting license of ABC, saying they could “do this the easy way or the hard way” in regards to Kimmel.

So what did Kimmel say or do to get this kind of attention? Nobody knows. According to a Rolling Stone article, even some of the execs in the emergency meetings called following Carr’s comments were confused as to what it was that Kimmel had done wrong. Carr spoke of Kimmel’s Monday night monologue in which he said MAGA was desperately trying to distance themselves from Charlie Kirk’s murderer (which is true), and then played actual clips of Trump not being particularly sad about the loss of Kirk.

Never mind that Kimmel was one of the first to condemn the tragedy and offer his condolences to Kirk’s family, repeating that same sentiment on his show.

Never mind that Nexstar Media, the first group to announce they were pulling Kimmel off the air, is in the middle of a $6.2 billion dollar merger that breaks anti-trust laws and needs FCC approval.

And never mind that Kimmel isn’t actually fired and his show isn’t actually canceled. He’s just… not allowed to do it.

This is a textbook case of the government violating the First Amendment.

And it doesn’t matter how you feel about Kimmel. I have had to listen to so many of you go off on the importance of free speech over the years (and over the past few weeks especially) without actually understanding what it means and why plurality in a democracy is so important, even when we don’t agree with every voice.

What if, a few years ago, Charlie Kirk had a TV show and Joe Biden had silenced it exactly like this? I can’t imagine some of your responses would be the same.

Anyway, I’m a writer, and I’m a dissenter, and I argue an awful lot. I’m just a lot. And this particular Amendment, the first one, is the most important to me. It’s literally one of the only things that makes this country unlike almost any other on the planet, and it’s the reason we have unlimited possibilities for our future.

This isn’t a time to panic. But it is the time to recognize that what we warned you about is here. This is where we recognize that the water we’re standing in has bubbles rising; this is when we have to decide whether to shit ourselves or get out of the pot.

Check out the Reuters article here.

Goosebumps & Shivers

September 19th, 2025

I love learning about who and what inspires the people who inspire me. Which is ironic, because it always makes me feel bad about my own inspirations.
 
I’ll read an article about a critically-beloved writer in NYC and they’ll say something like: “I grew up in an extremely cultured household. I had read all the classics by the time I was twelve years old. I have seen every arthouse film. I actually built art houses as a child with my father, who was a world-renowned architect, sculptor and whale biologist. I know thirty-five languages, seven of which are dead.”
 
Meanwhile, over here, I’m like: “I loved Goosebumps.”
 
I really did. It was a huge piece of a few years of my childhood, and it gave me a place to focus my storytelling energy. I knew how to write and I wrote a lot before I discovered R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series; those books, however, showed me what it would be like if writing was my job.
 
Can you imagine? Just writing books for a living? (I’m still trying to imagine it.) As I’m finishing up the most ambitious work of my (so-called) career, I’ve been thinking about all the things that got me here and made me want to get here. Goosebumps was, strangely, a big part of that.
 
I loved how the stories were designed. I loved the high concepts and how Stine was able to make them relevant in ways that felt personal to me. And I loved how the series was presented, visually, and I cannot overstate that.
 
I love branding. (No surprise coming from the graphic design major.) It’s one of the reasons I wanted to be Walt Disney when I was a kid; not just because I loved storytelling and animation, but because he had theme parks! And they were so beautifully, meticulously designed, and Disney’s branding was flawless across mediums to my young eyes.
 
Goosebumps had that desirable quality for me. So much so that it inspired me, at ten years old, to create my own series: Shivers. (Okay, so originality was not, like, my big thing at ten.) Now, not only did I start writing stories as part of a bigger concept, but I learned what it takes to create a brand: I designed a logo (that I stole as hard as the name of the series) and constructed my own covers and planned at least two years’ worth of books to release (of which I only wrote a few; I’m sure I still have fans waiting on Revenge of the Mutant Mushroom, Once Upon a UFO, Welcome to Camp Freakystreet, Night of the Living Laptop and Poisonous Pepto).
 
The series got me, a kid in a small town before the internet, who was obsessed with the library down the street, excited about reading and creating. I learned so much just from copying, studying and recreating the elements that made it so magical for me. That process and energy has stayed with me my entire life.
 
So I didn’t read every classic before I turned twelve years old. I’ve read a few of them since. I still think learning what everyone else finds inspiration in and gets inspiration from is extraordinarily inspirational in itself.
 
Somehow Goosebumps led me to Maple Island. I’m really grateful for that. And as the last days of the preorder window wind down (I’m closing them soon! Don’t miss your chance!), I’m really grateful to all of you who have supported me over all these years. The kid who created Shivers could only imagine.

Picking Cherries

September 16th, 2025

I don’t have to say anything about Charlie Kirk; then again, I don’t have to say anything about anything at all, and yet I keep writing here anyway.

Right away, I want to make two things I believe clear:

1. I don’t think anybody should be murdered, and this particular incident was horrifying. I was unfortunate enough to be exposed to the video without my consent and I’ve had trouble sleeping since.

2. Some of you are being really persistent in dismissing the way millions of people felt about Charlie Kirk and that… is a choice. This dismissal goes both ways.

Do you know how often a woman will come forward to her family and friends about the abuse she suffers under her husband only to be met with the phrase “…but he’s such a nice guy”? It doesn’t mean that either perception is dishonest; this very real phenomenon, however, may be something you want to consider at this time.

I actually want this essay to be about something very specific: cherry picking.

A long time ago, I stopped judging people for cherry picking the Bible, and for one simple reason: the Bible (and God) is full of contradictions from beginning to end.

It is impossible to do everything right according to the Word and that’s because the Bible, despite what people have shouted at me over the years, is not perfect. It was not written by God’s literal hand; it was written by man’s, and we are fallible as heck.

For example, there are these ten rules that God commanded; I forget what they’re called at the moment. “Thou shalt not kill” is a big one. But God killed people — like, a lot of people. But not only that: he encouraged people to kill other people. I’ve actually surprised Christians I know by mentioning this; they go on to tell me that isn’t true. But it is — according to the Bible. And it’s one of many dissonant facts found in its pages.

So: I said that I don’t judge people for having to cherry pick. This is true. Instead: I judge them by what they cherry pick and why.

Another example: Miss Rachel posted a video during Pride in which she said she loves everyone because her faith tells her to do so, and quoted a passage from the Bible to support that view. In a now extremely viral video, Charlie Kirk and his friends attacked Miss Rachel and her stance, and then quoted an earlier chapter of that same passage, where God calls on us to stone a man who lies with a man, which Kirk then calls the perfect response (or “law”).

One of these people cherry picked based on inclusion, kindness and compassion; one them chose exclusion, violence and hatred as the basis for their choice.

Religion gives nobody a stable, preconstructed moral framework; it’s up to us to build our own home of ethics, and to ensure it has a strong foundation, sturdy walls and can withstand the winds of those who wish to hurt, manipulate and control us. We also choose the furniture; we pick love or fear, empathy or apathy, destruction or acceptance.

Going back to an earlier point, I think it’s really hard for humans to hold the idea that several truths can exist at the same time. Charlie Kirk was an inspirational figure to millions. Charlie Kirk said and did things to hurt just as many.

Look, a bunch of you are going to talk so much shit about me when I’m gone (but be honest, some of you already do). And I will deserve at least some of it. Maybe a few of you will call me a scumbag, like Kirk did George Floyd after his murder. This cycle of shit-talking ends when we end it, which feels unlikely any time soon.

What’s funny is that everybody is screaming about context, but context doesn’t make Charlie Kirk look better or worse; it just gives you a more complete picture of who he was and who he wanted us to think he was.

And isn’t that all anyone wants?

We all want more context, more benefit of the doubt, we want people to see a more complete picture of who we are. It explains socialization of every kind. If you’ve come here to say something completely positive or negative about Kirk, you are missing the point. He wasn’t either of those things, but neither are you or I. People are allowed to mourn (or not) in their own ways.

If you can’t see the hypocrisy of the administration’s reaction to this death, then you are either paying woeful inattention or participating in willful ignorance. It’s a tragedy, but the blame being laid at the feet of half of the country is just another distraction, up successfully baiting down, active encouragement for you to hate me.

You can hate me. Fine.

But at least do it on your own terms. Don’t generalize or label me. Don’t cherry pick the worst of me and ignore the best when I’ve sincerely tried my hardest to give you it all. I write these stupid essays constantly, and sometimes you disagree; I take those disagreements to heart. Sometimes my opinions change because of them, but sometimes it makes me sharpen my own ethical tools and make a better, sharper, stronger statement than I ever could have without you.

That’s actual open dialogue. I won’t condescend to you. I do listen, even when you infuriate me. I won’t ask you to prove me wrong with the automatic assumption that I’m always right.

There’s a lot of that going around.

Anyway, I didn’t have to say anything today, or any other day.

For all of this to work, though, one of us has to start a real conversation.