This Season was Written by Dicks
One of the more pernicious effects of the Trump administration is that non-crazy people now have to distrust government agencies. And that conspiracy theorists are difficult to mock. Neither of these...
View ArticleThe Two Kinds of Pleasure
A popular refrain from writers is that they don’t enjoy writing, but they enjoy having written. I find this is true for so many things in life. There’s the joy we experience while doing a thing, and...
View ArticleAll the Stories We Tell
I can’t stop thinking about the science-fiction post-apocalyptic nightmare we’d be living in right now if the regular flu didn’t exist until December of 2019 and it suddenly appeared and started...
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Following the Math
Before we talk about numbers, let’s talk about empathy. Death sucks. It’s probably the number one worst thing about living. Otherwise, living is mostly great. But death kinda mucks it up in the end....
View ArticleChanging the World
Zoom out with your mind for a moment and picture planet Earth from a distance. Note the clusters of light at major cities on the night side. Picture the airplanes and container ships slowly creeping...
View ArticleSincerity and Song
Do you remember the first time you went outside in the blackness of night? The first time you walked away from all light and felt darkness surround you, wrapping itself across your shoulders like a...
View ArticleWorld Building
When we sit down to write a novel, we start with a blank page. The world we create can take any shape we like. It doesn’t need to have our rules. It doesn’t need to have our history. The only...
View ArticleTomorrow is too Late
I used to take some chances with my bad guys. I’ve written my fair share of them. But if I wrote a scene where cops teargassed clergy off the stoop of their own church, so a president who has never...
View ArticleA New World
Ten years ago I lived in Boone, in the mountains of North Carolina. Boone has an interesting mix of the political spectrum. There are good old boys mixed in with flower children. It’s a bit of a...
View ArticleThe Phases of Life
Life comes in three phases: 1) Ignoring all advice. 2) Finally trying things and wishing you’d done them sooner. 3) Being an advocate of things and no one listening. The post The Phases of Life...
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The Dystopia Triptych
It’s here! It’s real! The latest release from John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and myself! I present to you, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, BURN THE ASHES, and OR ELSE THE LIGHT. Otherwise known as THE...
View ArticleTen Years of WOOL
It’s been a decade since I wrote a little story that changed my life and kept a ton of readers up past their bedtimes. When I wrote WOOL, I never thought I’d live to see it impact so many people. All...
View ArticleThe Price of Freedom
We were sitting on a friend’s porch, looking out over the ocean. The fence that holds back the dunes had an American flag affixed to it, held straight by a sea breeze. If asked what that flag meant, a...
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A Year in Review
One year ago today I woke up in a hotel room in Svalbard, Norway. I was sleeping on half of a king-size bed made from pushing two twin beds together. On the other side of the bed was the most magical...
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