The heat, as they say, is on

The pollen has (mostly) calmed down, and the brief tease of temperate Spring weather has given way to Sol Invictus/Amun-Ra/Amaterasu Ōmikami trying to push its searing light deep into our flesh here in Central Floridastan. Just as its heating up here, things are heating up in multiple projects I’m involved with!

Progress Update

I’ve been chipping away at the draft for my WIP novel, a cozy fantasy! I’ll share more about it in the future, but one unusual thing about this book: I usually start out my story ideation with a character and/or a situation, but this is the first time that I’ve ever had a book’s title come to me first. I’m going to leave the details of the story to your imagination for the time being, but I’m excited at the prospect of completing this draft!

On the grad school front, I’m wrapping up the penultimate semester of my Publishing degree! Soon, I’ll be starting my MFA in Genre Fiction and I can’t wait. In the meantime, my publishing cohort’s anthology celebrating the messy side of love, Chaotic Cupids: When Loves Goes Awry, is up for pre-order now! 

The pre-order link for my sweet new edition of A Princess of Mars will be dropping soon and I’ll have a whole bonus dispatch covering the process of creating this new edition of Burroughs’ groundbreaking science-fantasy epic.

The Elk River Writers Workshop Kickstarter campaign is still going strong, with a new stretch goal added, and more to come! There’s still time to support this wonderful indigenous-led writing retreat before the campaign ends on May 8th.

What I’m reading, watching, and playing

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson

I feel like I’m the last person on earth, at least in my nerd circles, to be reading Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve been taking my time with it, bouncing back and forth between the audiobook and e-book because otherwise I’d never finish it with all of the reading I’m doing for school and author research. So far it’s been very good, and it’s hard to believe we’ll likely be saying goodbye to characters that have been with us for close to 15 years. I think the Stormlight Archive will go down in history as Sanderson’s seminal work, but as prolific as talented as he is, who knows?

Sinners by Ryan Coogler

Sinners is the best movie of 2025 so far, in my own humble opinion. Ryan Coogler’s latest film continues to build upon an already strong resume, full of beautiful cinematography, powerful performances and nuanced messages on race and cultural appropriation in the 1930s Jim Crow South. All while being a fantastic vamp flick!

And while this isn’t a movie blog and there are plenty of reviews that do it more justice than I can, there’s one theme of the movie I wanted to touch upon as it relates to storytelling: the absolutely masterful way the Coogler’s film uses music to pierce the veil between music, race, and culture.

Sinners goes out of its way to reminder moviegoers that rhythm, melody, and lyricism are the grammar of a universal language that allows us to connect when words, cultures, or governments fail us. The melange of music in the film offers a medium through which people can mix within the cracks of Jim Crow-era segregation—a power which music continues to have in our own time. In the most surreal scene, a character’s music casts a spell that draws us across space and time to explicitly show how music shares a spiritual lineage that binds us together. Definitely check it out in theaters while you can.

And make sure you stick around for the after-credits scene! If you love blues music, you might just fall out of your chair from a certain cameo.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered by Bethesda Game Studios and Virtuos

Video games have been a part of my creative inspiration since my SEGA Master System in the late 1980s, and it shines through in some of my work. With that in mind, when I’ve been playing a game that fires my creative engines, I’ll be sharing a little bit about that game and how it helps me get in the flow.

Last week, Bethesda, legendary studio behind the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, dropped a bombshell by announcing and releasing a remastered version of Oblivion, the immediate prequel to Skyrim and a much beloved, though graphically limited, game from the mid-00s. Remakes and remasters of beloved RPGs have been en vogue of late, but what Bethesda and Virtuos had done is remarkable in that it succeeds in delivering as close to the original gameplay as possible (at least as far as this author remembers) while delivering a graphical overhaul that makes the game look as good as anything released in the last couple of years.

Bethesda games have always been incredibly immersive, and its easy to rove the land in first-person mode and feel like the fate of the world really does depend on you. And that always gets me thinking about how certain characters of mine would act and move in that world. When I write a scene, I’m always trying to bring that same level of immersion to the reader in terms of the sensory detail.

The Signal Boost: Award-winning artist and author CL Fors

This month I want to signal boost my friend, fellow WCU Publishing student, and now award-winning artist CL Fors! She just recently won the Illustrator of the Future award in a beautiful gala ceremony in Hollywood, California. On top of being a brilliant artist, (she also did the art for Chaotic Cupids) CL is also a very talented storyteller and author of the science-fiction saga the Primogenitor Series.

See more of CL Fors’ work:
CL’s art website
CL’s author website 

For more information on the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests, which I strongly recommend entering for anyone looking to develop and grow their writing or artistic skills, visit the contest’s website.

Exit Music

Sinners is a positively smashing movie for a lot of reasons, but the revelation that is newcomer Miles Caton and his performance as a young blues man is something to behold, or listen to in this case. His haunting vocals will grab you by the soul, as any good griot can.