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On biting off more than you can chew Take a look at that raggedy-ass collection of books up there. Believe it or not, I’ve been staring at that same assembly of well-worn reference material for over two decades now. It sits on the top shelf of my home office desk, where I toil away at my writing and for-profit drudgework countless hours each day, seven days a week. And before this dust-gathering library occupied its current ominous perch atop my workstation, a smaller version

On being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool David Bowie, as shot by Michael Benabib for Blender CD-ROM Magazine It all seems sort of improbable now, but there was a time in my life when I was interacting with legitimate musical superstars (including some of my all-time heroes) on a weekly basis. And what’s more, I was doing it as part of a job that I had no real training or preparation for, just jumping from one random high-stakes interview to the next without ever

Plus: The Literary Lives of Techbros So a few weeks back I mused lightly on the use of generative AI in the creation of my book trailer. And I really didn’t think I would return to the topic, quite honestly. Although it’s true that I wrote a political column for years, the last thing I want is to turn this newsletter into a running series of hot takes and tech-bashing. But as news has unfolded over the last several weeks, there’s something that’s been increasingly working my

Three decades of Photoshop funnies. First off, I want to make it clear that I'm not actually a grandpa. But I am pretty dang old, and was recently reflecting on just how long I've been making goofy Photoshop compositions. Even though my main passion (and true talent) has always been writing, I've long enjoyed the act of digitally stitching together incongruous elements into whimsical illustrations. As you can imagine, I often find myself griping and groaning and shaking my

What's in a name? You'd be surprised. The act of publishing under a fake name in order to mask one’s true identity is a practice as old as writing itself. This reasons for this subterfuge varied widely, from a desire to appear more authoritative to a fear of political persecution. Early Greco-Roman alchemists, for instance, employed legendary names such as Cleopatra the Alchemist and Pseudo-Democritus in order to lend their works a patina of authority. Conversely, many author

An ode to those ungainly towers Me atop Two World Trade Center in the mid-90s You know, I had a much longer post queued up for today which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. To be honest, I don’t feel that I have much to add to the conversation surrounding the event. Yes, I lived in Brooklyn and worked in midtown at the time, but I think my experience was similar to many folks who weren’t directly impacted by the attacks. As I was leaving (late) for work that day I flipp

Never send a boy to do a fan's job A quick clarification: I did not actually kill Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of INXS, and apologize profusely for the clickbaity headline. But since it’s early in my Substack journey, and my readership is slight, I’m letting it all hang out! I’d probably feel worse about making light of Hutchence’s death if I was convinced that he intentionally committed suicide, but the evidence for that has never been all that persuasive to me. His pa

Painting by Don Biggs, via Etsy I’m going to kick off this post by proclaiming my love and admiration for Dolly Parton, who also passed in recent days — she was a towering figure, and an exemplar of the (all-to-rare) compassionate and generous celebrity who practiced exactly what she preached: love and respect for all, and unstinting support for the marginalized and underprivileged. If every famous person was like her, this world would be an infinitely better place. But for m

Adventures in the modern world of self-publishing Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936) As a writer who’s been at this game a very long time, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when I made the decision to go full indie author for my latest novel Strangers’ Gate. Self-publishing wasn’t the original plan, as I was committed to doing things the traditional way (lengthy agent search, lucky break, praying for a book contract, no matter how meagre) that doing it all myself seeme

Okay, some of them probably weren't all that rich. Always loved this graphic, which was created using data from the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. No idea why I'm thinking about it now as I toil feverishly away on a project at midnight, knowing full well that I have to rouse myself and enact a performative pantomime of work tomorrow morning. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

A completely normal couple enjoy a drink in one of the ads within the Strangers' Gate ad. One of the really fun things about writing speculative fiction is gaming out exactly what you think might happen to a particular idea or technology in the distant (or not-so-distant) future. For Strangers' Gate, the near-future aspect of the narrative made this even more challenging, as there are things happening right now that appear monumentally consequential, but could very easily see

To say that I have complicated feelings about the Fourth of July this year would be an astronomical understatement. When I first started writing Strangers' Gate two years ago, Joe Biden was president and had yet to drop out of the presidential race to endorse Kamala Harris as his successor. My intention at that point was to write a breezy, slightly outrageous potboiler set in a future version of America that would make Sean Hannity wail with despair. A welcoming, multi-cultu