It’s Pride and I’m Furious (Warning: There may be more swearing than usual in this month’s letter.) Welcome to June! We’re almost halfway through the year, and this month we celebrate the summer solstice, and it’s also LGBTQ+ Pride month, which— Well. The world is a different place than it was a year ago, isn’t it? Whatever veil of civility kept people from showing their asses has pretty much been shredded. Granted, those people were never on our side in the first place, they just didn’t want...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
I have a story coming out on May 7 at Voyage YA by Uncharted, titled “Grand Canyon.” It was inspired by two things: the first, my friend Matt in college, who wrote a story about the Grand Canyon disappearing. It left me wondering, where did it go? This story suggests an answer. A messy answer. Photo by Omer Nezih Gerek, unsplash.co It’s also inspired by a song, “Grand Canyon,” by Tracey Thorn, who’s one half of the band Everything by the Girl, one of my all-time favorites. “Grand Canyon” was...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Read “The Visitor” at Wattpad Back in 2009, a queer speculative literary magazine, Collective Fallout, published my story “The Visitor.” It started out as a NaNoWriMo novel—and the less said about that “contest” the better. The story’s about the narrator’s vacation fling with his friend’s neighbor who may or may not be from another planet. I like to think that my writing has grown since then, but I still am fond of the story, even if many of the details have become hazy even to me. The...
3 months ago • 3 min read
(I’ve moved things around a little this month. Pardon the dust!) The Unwanted Turns 11: This March marks the 11th anniversary of my first YA novel, The Unwanted. (Well, my first published YA novel, at least. There are a few others in the metaphorical drawer.) Since then I’ve published a YA novella and am currently working on another YA novel, which is currently being knocked into shape by a freelance editor friend of mine. While you’re waiting on that one, go check out my first one if you’ve...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Pre-S (get it? It’s like a PS except it comes at the beginning instead of the end, so, Pre-S): I finished the third draft of my latest novel! Two months ahead of schedule! Cue the fanfare! Will it ever see the light of day? Who the heck knows! All I know is I did a thing! Please clap. [waits for applause to die down] Thank you, you’re too kind. And now, for the offer-slash-request (yes, I know I could have just used a / instead of writing out “slash,” but where’s the fun in that? Nowhere,...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Happy new year! I hope. Buckle in, he’s going to talk about Star Trek again. There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that’s been on my mind recently. “Tapestry” was a sixth season episode in which Captain Picard’s artificial heart failed and he’s given an opportunity by Q to fix the “mistakes” in his past that led to him having an artificial heart in the first place. But when he does so and then returns to the present, Picard finds himself no longer captain of the Enterprise, but...
6 months ago • 3 min read
My favorite book of 2024 I’m a slow reader. Usually, I’m glad if I can get to two books a month (although when I’m teaching, even one can be ambitious). So I was surprised to look back and realize I read 32 books this year. I even finished a couple of them because I was reading them alongside two students I was working with in an advanced fiction class. It was a good year for reading. My favorite book of 2024. Oh, also my chin. If I had to pick a favorite out of all these books, it would be...
7 months ago • 2 min read
Hope and Fear Well, this is a fine mess. I was out of the country for the past two weeks in Greece. We voted early and planned to be away during the U.S. election, and upon reflection that turned out to be, if you’ll pardon my language, a fucking fantastic idea. Now I’m back, of course, and talking about my wonderful and inspiring and highly stressful trip abroad seems pretty darn off key. As they say, read the room. And the room is pretty darn bummed. It’s easy for me to feel helpless when...
8 months ago • 2 min read
At last, October. With fall officially upon us at the end of September, I start to feel a little more human as the days get shorter and the temperatures start to come down. It’s no secret that summer and I do not get along. Allergies that reared their heads in spring keep right on trying to kill me throughout the dog days of July and August, and as someone who breaks into a sweat any time the temperature is above 75, summer means I perpetually look like I just ran a road race. When October...
9 months ago • 3 min read
