It’s interesting to look back at one’s work to observe our progression. I’ve been writing snippets of stories since I was a kid, but seven years ago, I started writing here, dedicating more practice to the craft. It wasn’t so much a hobby – as I very much enjoy writing – as an exploration of the strange, the cosmic, and the uncomfortable truths hiding in the world, and how we as people transform in a meaningful way by uncovering those truths. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror happen to be great genres to do this.
As I look back at my own work on this blog, I find my own character arc through the stories, conversations, and essays.
The Stories
I’ve published eleven short stories on this site, spanning hard sci-fi to cosmic horror to dark fantasy. Each one was an attempt to ask questions I didn’t have answers to when I started writing them. Human and The Schlikt found homes in Kyanite Press. Saturn: Journey to the Core was published in New Zenith Magazine. The rest remain here – PODs, Leviathan’s Jaw, The Citadel, Wake Me Please. Okulous-10 became something larger, a serialized project exploring what happens when we venture beyond our solar system and find we’re not alone. I had other attempts at poems or short pieces that don’t fall into a specific category, such as The Ghosts in the Walls, Sixes and 12’s, and The Man with One Thousand Hands.
The through-line in all of them: people confronting forces they can’t control, making choices that matter, discovering what it means to be human when humanity itself is questioned.
The Conversations
Between 2018 and 2023, I ran Interviews from the Void – 52 episodes with working writers about craft, process, and the mechanics of storytelling. Andy Weir talked about finishing projects. Hugh Howey discussed remarkable stories and cover art. Amy Duboff explored why science fiction lets us examine the human experience.
Fifty-two conversations. Hundreds of insights about outlining, dialogue, world-building, time management, self-publishing, and the daily work of being a writer. The archive remains here because the advice doesn’t expire.
The Essays
Alongside the fiction, I’ve written about what scares me and why. Shoes in the Ceiling and The Dungeon explore the nightmare logic of self-summoning – how we create our own terrors even when we know better. Essays on Jeff Vandermeer’s Absolution, Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, and Richard Matheson’s Hell House examine what makes horror effective.
The craft essays On Writing PODs and On Editing PODs document the actual work behind the stories. Not theory, but practice. What worked, what failed, what I learned.
Final Reflection
This archive isn’t comprehensive. There are unpublished stories, abandoned projects, and ideas that never made it past the outline stage. What’s here represents the work I’m willing to stand behind. Fiction that asks questions, conversations that illuminate craft, and essays that examine why certain stories stick with us.
Seven years. Eleven stories. Fifty-two interviews. Dozens of essays. All of it asking the same fundamental question: What happens when ordinary people encounter the extraordinary, and how do they change in the process?
I think there are infinite answers to that question. I’ll continue discovering them.
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