Cold World: Building a house you can live in as is, with doors and stairways to expand up, down, or sideways

June 30th, 2023 Everything about Cold World was, for me, too big to contain in one story — whether I ever decide to write any of those other stories or not. I knew that I wanted to tell a complete, specific tale: this chapter of Calef’s life as he explores the power of understanding, throughContinue reading “Cold World: Building a house you can live in as is, with doors and stairways to expand up, down, or sideways”

Cold World: Faith & Spirituality

June 16th, 2023 “It’s not that I don’t believe in anything. I just haven’t found the thing that makes sense to me yet.” That’s how I usually answer the question of whether I’m religious or believe in God. The formal term is agnostic; I learned that the difference between being agnostic or atheist is thatContinue reading “Cold World: Faith & Spirituality”

Cold World: Loss & Grief

June 14th, 2023 Cold World was the first time I explored the loss of my mom in fiction. I do it here, on the internet, all the time. Your responses to that type of writing has ranged from “this is exactly how I feel, thank you for writing this” to “this makes me very uncomfortable,”Continue reading “Cold World: Loss & Grief”

Building a Cold World

June 8th, 2023 I am not God, but I do spend a whole lot of damn time creating life. Sometimes I’m constructing the lives of animals, or inventing superheroes with superreal problems, or dreaming up a boy who feels more alive when he sleeps, or designing the future on a planet that never thaws. SoContinue reading “Building a Cold World”

SKP 2023: Cold World

June 1, 2023 A year ago, I released a novel about Earth, 200 years in the future, that has only one season: winter. This month, we talk all about it. Cold World has a science-fiction lens, but that’s not its focal point at all. It’s a story about a whole lot more, including spirituality, loss,Continue reading “SKP 2023: Cold World”

61

May 31st, 2023 The older I get, the less I try to use the word “hate,” but today is the worst day of the year, and I hate it. It’s my mom’s birthday, which is worse than her death day, because that day was something that happened and is done, while her birthday is aboutContinue reading “61”

The History of The Next Step, Part VI: Unreleased Work, Legacy, and The Future

May 29th, 2023 Like a person, The Next Step isn’t and never was all good or all bad. And it was never a boy band. But it made me who I am today. Before I get to how, however, let’s talk about the stuff that never got made (or got made and then buried somewhereContinue reading “The History of The Next Step, Part VI: Unreleased Work, Legacy, and The Future”

Static Interlude

April 26th, 2023 I’ve been distant. (Don’t act like you noticed. We can only hold 150 people in our heads and I’m not one of them.) Usually when I sit down and type one of these I have a central idea or general theme or, you know, a point. That is not what this is.Continue reading “Static Interlude”

Woke Up Call

April 10th, 2023 Happy Monday, y’all. I haven’t been posting much this month and I can’t throw a dart on a board to pinpoint why; it’s a whole set of concentric circles, from all the work I’m doing, the day kind and the creative kind, to obsessively watching and reading Star Wars to maintain myContinue reading “Woke Up Call”

Be The Sun

April 6th, 2023 It’s a weird phenomenon that we think of something nice to say about someone else and then battle within ourselves over whether or not we should say it. We should always say it. I got a gift today. As an artist, you’re always trying to figure out what kind of art youContinue reading “Be The Sun”