Author of horror and hopepunk, Shiraki Press co-founder, and veteran video game developer
July Updates and Links This month, I made a few long-overdue updates to the website to better feature my publishing and writing work, and I finally saw my writing group for the first time since, I don’t know, March? I’ve really missed that crew. 💖 (BTW: You should pre-order the Saturday Mourning Television anthology, which one of our members is published in!) I’ve lately been working on some kind…
They say the stolen rose blooms best. When Ethan Keating Mendoza is hired as a gardener at an old Victorian residence in central Indiana, he has one clear mission: make the roses bloom. Ethan’s life is roses--he’s the son of a hedge witch and a partner in his father’s rose growing business--but he has no magic himself. The Kilbride estate is wild and overgrown. The roses have not bloomed in…
Princess Cyrelle has always been faithful and true to her family, country, and Goddess. But now her brother, King Elias of Cicia, has asked for—no, commanded —her hand in marriage. Desperate to avoid this incestuous union, Cyrelle requests a series of increasingly impossible gifts and petitions the Goddess for a sign to sway her resolute brother’s proposal. As Elias persists undeterred, Cyrelle…
Dr. Jorna Benton is proud to be the Principal Scientist for the Climasphere, a massive, sea-going ecological nursery capable of supporting nearly every biome on Earth. On its inaugural mission to restore and re-wild collapsing ecosystems along the Atlantic coast, Jorna manages the Climasphere’s habitat and harvest, while her colleague—and inconveniently attractive commander—Ava Kaysar directs the…
Living in Survival Mode I feel like I’ve been living in survival mode lately. 😫 I’m busy with Shiraki Press of course, but we also have a toddler who’s on the cusp of turning three and is in his “dismantle the entire house every single day” phase; plus we have our two older boys for the summer—my wife’s kids, my step-kids—both of whom have autism and one of whom is medically complex; and on top…
AI Blog Question Challenge Rishabh P. Sharma proposed a blog challenge about AI , and I found the questions thoughtful enough that I wanted to give it a shot. Here are my answers! How was your first experience with AI models? I tried ChatGPT once for suggesting character names that fit within a particular theme or vibe. It seemed more useful than it ultimately was ; lots of things slipped in that…
New Release: The Color of Time Our third publication for Shiraki Press launched today: The Color of Time by Millie Abecassis . It’s a sapphic science fantasy adventure with political intrigue and a building revolution... and you don’t realize it until later, but the whole thing is fundamentally about care. I love it a lot. Also, this cover by Alyssa Winans goes so hard! You can pick up your copy…
There’s A Joke About Entrepreneurs... There’s this old joke that entrepreneurs will work eighty hours a week to avoid working forty. It’s funny, and it feels true, but it also misses something enormously important: the impact of self-determination. Every job I’ve ever worked, even the ones that were predominantly good, required a bunch of daily bullshit I knew wasn’t necessary to my, or anyone…
My Brain Is Scrambled Eggs How am I doing another monthly update already, and how am I doing it late again?! Between running a publisher, running a household, parenting a toddler, and trying to get an author career off the ground, my brain is just made of scrambled eggs lately. 😭 Writing Through the first part of March—before the calendar sprinted away from me—I did a bunch of outlining and…
New Release: Wine for Roses Our second publication for Shiraki Press launched today: Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu . This is a lovely, quiet story about a gardener who doesn’t believe in his own magic, a reclusive trustee who no longer believes he has a place in the world, and a cursed rose garden that forces both of them to confront their self-made prisons, together. Lisa Marie Pompilio…
We Launched A Book! Easily the biggest news in my life right now is that Shiraki Press launched our first book on March 3: Lauren C. Teffeau ’s sapphic eco-thriller Accelerated Growth Environment . I wrote up some of my own thoughts on the book here , and you can order your copy in ebook and/or paperback directly from Shiraki Press . In other news, I recently spent at a week at the Rainforest…
New Release: Accelerated Growth Environment Our first publication for Shiraki Press launched today: the wonderful eco-thriller Accelerated Growth Environment by Lauren C. Teffeau . I feel so honored that Lauren trusted us, an unknown press with no prior publications, with this spectacular book, and Brianne and I both worked incredibly hard throughout our press’s first year to produce a high…
Review: The Fisherman All the same, those details. If, as the saying goes, that’s where the devil is, then half of hell seemed to be crowded into this story. The Fisherman by John Langan is a slow-burn cosmic horror with some of the most arresting imagery I’ve read in recent memory. There’s more than a passing nod to Moby Dick here, from the opening sentence—“Don’t call me Abraham: call me…
Rainforest Writers Retreat 2026 In late February I attended the Rainforest Writers Retreat , hosted at the Rainforest Resort Village at Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. It was four-ish days with a cabin to myself, focused on resting, thinking, and writing, and especially after how intense the first six weeks of 2026 ended up being for me, it was much-needed and well-timed.…
So Much Publishing Work 2026 sure started off with a bang... so much so that I’m half a month late on my monthly update. 😭 We had a bunch of Shiraki Press deadlines hit during the first six weeks of the year, along with some new marketing opportunities that popped up recently and also had deadlines during that time, so I found myself working on the press absolutely full time; my own writing got…
Doing It Scared I’ve spent a huge amount of time since the start of 2026 working on book design for Shiraki Press , and while I’m immensely proud of these results, it’s also one of the scariest things I’ve ever done . Before getting into publishing last year, I spent 20 years as a video game developer, alternating between engineering and design. I never considered myself an artist and I never got…
Joy, Angst, and Reconnection December was a weird month. I had surgery on the 1st, and then Brianne had surgery on the 17th, so we spent a lot of time on rest and recovery, while also feeling the annual crunch to get ready for Christmas. We also had lots of Shiraki Press stuff land just before the end of the year, including a new acquisition , and I started reducing my dependence on digital…
Consolidating My Platform I started Horror × Hope at the beginning of October to be an email newsletter and social media brand for sharing my horror and hopepunk fiction. I put it on Ghost , syndicated it to Substack and Medium , and promoted it via dedicated brand social media accounts on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads. After running it for the last quarter of the year, I now think that was…
Our Year of Reconnection Photo by Frans van Heerden It’s 2026, and we’ve reached a breaking point. The internet was supposed to connect the world, but instead we have a shrinking ecosystem of walled gardens and a well-documented loneliness epidemic . Social media was supposed to keep us in touch with our friends and families, but instead we have a teen mental health crisis , widespread smartphone…
Review: Snake-Eater It was profoundly absurd that being the assistant manager at a deli would prepare you to fight a god. Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher is a wonderfully earnest story about finding community, and it’s my favorite book of 2025. Selena moves to Quartz Creek to escape her emotionally abusive boyfriend and reconnect with her aunt Amelia, but upon her arrival she discovers Amelia died…
Year in Review: 2025 The older I get, the more I feel like the winter solstice is the true beginning of the new year. Astronomically speaking, it’s a much more significant date than January 1, and culturally speaking, it’s been a more meaningful date for most of human history. It drove ancient celebrations like Yule and Saturnalia, inspired structures like Stonehenge and Newgrange, and served as a…
New Release: The Gilded King My new poem The Gilded King is out! I’ve never considered myself a poetry-enjoyer, but then this just… fell out of me, and now I have to rethink everything. Never underestimate the power of being morally offended on behalf of your homeland, I guess. You can read this piece here . View this page on the web | Reply via email
New Stories and Reviews It’s been a busy month of writing and publishing. Let’s get into it! Writing I have two new stories out this month, and they’re both a lot chunkier than my prior work: When the Black Wind Blows is a haunting story about a pair of criminals caught between the police, the storm of the century, and their own ghosts. It employs a cyclic narrative structure—I’m an absolute…
New Release: We Are All Terrorists Now My new story We Are All Terrorists Now is out! This piece is a supernatural political horror story about a group of fascist vigilantes who raid an antifa coven. It was inspired by President Trump’s ridiculous executive order declaring “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization”, and the subsequent NSPM-7 which declares a whole gaggle of widely-held—and…
Review: It Was Her House First When it comes to things you care about, you don’t high-tail it. You stay and fight. It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest is a haunted house story with a big heart, a charismatic cast, and a few trope-defying surprises up its sleeve. Ronnie just bought an old fixer-upper in West Seattle, which she’s eager to restore. Complicating matters: the house is haunted by…
New Release: When the Black Wind Blows My new story When the Black Wind Blows is out! This story explores cycles of abuse through a cyclic narrative structure in which a pair of criminals are caught between the police, the storm of the century, and their own ghosts. It’s got criminals on the run, a massive blizzard, a haunted gas station, and a creepy surprise ending that I’m really proud of. I…
Review: The Starving Saints “What can be worse than what we are driven to, when all else is lost? Doesn’t it all become the same, then?” The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling is one of my favorite books of 2025. Aymar Castle is under siege, and its people are starving. Just as they resort to cannibalism, the Saints they worship miraculously arrive, in the flesh, with a bountiful feast. From…
Review: Magica Riot If you ask me, I say family’s a thing you pick, like how you pick the way you wanna be seen, y’know? It don’t matter what your blood says. Magica Riot by Kara Buchanan is a hopepunk adventure full of over-the-top anime-style action, cozy found family vibes, and a compelling journey of self-discovery. When closeted trans girl Claire Ryland attends a concert for her favorite rock…
Affinity Just One-Upped Adobe So Hard Today, Affinity announced a new version of their popular art suite—which includes pixel and vector image editing and desktop publishing tools comparable to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign—and they made a huge splash by revealing that the new version is free (with an optional Canva Pro subscription that enables generative AI features). I’ve seen an…
New Fiction Coming Soon! October was a chaotic month, but also a productive one! Writing I am very excited to have secured a spot in the Rainforest Writers Village in February 2026! It’s a five-day writing retreat at the Rainforest Resort Village on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula. I’ll have a cabin in the woods all to myself, in the middle of Washington’s long dark rainy season. The vibes for…
Review: The Possession of Alba Díaz She caught his kiss between her teeth and returned it stripped of chastity. The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas is a fresh demonic possession story from the perspective of the possessed, which does not unfold the way you’d expect. It’s chilling and satisfying! This is part horror, part historical fiction, and part romance. The horror will be familiar…
Out On Submission The summer heat has broken, the rains have returned, and Halloween is at our doorstep. October, the best month of the year, is finally upon us! 🎃 Writing My short story The Blizzard — since retitled When the Black Wind Blows — is currently out on submission. I’ve never sent something out in this way before, and I wanted to see what submitting looks and feels like from the author…
Seattle Worldcon I had hoped to get a new short story out in August, but there was too much else going on and I wasn’t able to finish my edits in time. I keep telling myself I’m only behind because a third of the month was swallowed by Seattle Worldcon and a family trip to Utah, but my jerk brain keeps insisting I had 31 work days instead of, like, 12 (and most of those were consumed with…
The Hornet Apocalypse In the middle of July, we took the kids down to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma. While we were out, a moving truck backed into the mature Japanese Maple on the corner of our property—ripping down a third of the tree—and then drove off. When we got home, we discovered a football-sized bald-faced hornet nest was now on the ground, broken open, and very active!…
New Release: Witness I briefly lived in a little red brick house near Salt Lake City. I loved that house, and I had so many cool projects planned for it, but when I bought it, I had no idea how quickly my life was about to change. By the end of that same year, I was preparing to move again—this time to the Seattle area, for a new job—and then two months after that, COVID hit. My memories of that…
Summer Vacation I recently had to physically break into my own home office because the battery in the smart lock on the door died without warning. The future is stupid. Travel June kicked off with a week-long trip to Virginia for a family reunion. It was hot, muggy, and chaotic. There were so many people, and so many children. On the way back, we went through DC and visited the Smithsonian Air and…
New Fiction Last month, Brianne and I both reoriented more of our energy away from our stubbornly fruitless hunt for tech jobs. I spent the month fully committed to my own writing, and to my responsibilities to Shiraki Press . Which sounds nice, but the financial anxiety is real . We’re currently living off dwindling savings, and the press is unlikely to make its first dollar for many months…
New Release: Tribute I spent most of the last year in a speculative fiction course at Hugo House , taught by Nisi Shawl . To conclude the course, we each did a four-minute live performance of our work for Two Hour Transport . For mine, I wrote a new horror flash called Tribute . In this piece, the deposed leader of an authoritarian regime meets the Devil, and pays his due. You can read it here .…
Burnout is Grief I got severely burned out in my previous career, twice. Here are a few things I learned: Burnout takes as long to get out of as it took to get into. Simply taking a vacation isn’t enough. This is an inconvenient truth. Burnout is a lot like depression in that it becomes extremely difficult to find joy or see the good in things. This erodes hope that the burnout can ever end.…
Ownership is the Whole Ballgame I invested 20 years into game dev. You know what I can do with the fruits of that labor today? Nothing. Most of the games I worked on have been rendered obsolete along with the hardware platforms they were built for, or by the servers they rely on being decommissioned. I have no ownership over any of it (except for Legacy of the Elder Star ); virtually all work in…
Tech Collapse I’ve been searching for game dev work since December. I have 20 years of experience. I’ve applied to 55 jobs. Today, I got rejected from one of the very last opportunities left in the mix, after a total of three recruiter calls and seven rounds of interviews . Why are we doing this?! And to be honest, that was the only one of those 55 jobs that I was actually kinda excited about.…
Introducing Shiraki Press While using my sabbatical to explore a pivot into writing as a profession, I decided self publishing made the most sense for me, and that necessitated a deep dive into what it would take to set up a functional publishing pipeline. My wife, Brianne, a producer by nature, saw an opportunity to support this venture and tap into some of her own interests by helping manage…
Launching Shiraki Press I’m officially done with sabbatical , but I’m going to keep doing these monthly updates—for a while, at least—because they turn out to be useful milestones for my own accountability and excellent reminders of what I’ve actually accomplished. Shiraki Press Speaking of publishing, Shiraki Press is now off the ground and accepting submissions! My wife and I started this…
Ending Sabbatical I’m starting to transition out of sabbatical mode and back into focused work mode. I started this sabbatical back in July with the goal of identifying a new purpose and figuring out how to pursue it in a way that makes me a healthier, happier human. I approached this with as much of an open mind as possible, with no definite end goal other than to find joy in creative work again.…
Sabbatical Update 6: The Struggle Continues January felt like a very dynamic month. If you had asked me on any given day how I felt things were going, I’d have growled and looked for a cave to retreat to, but in retrospect, I think the month turned out better than it felt along the way. At least, until a car accident at the end of it derailed everything, because this sabbatical is cursed . Shaping…
Sabbatical Update 5: Happy New Year? Most of December was an exhausting mess that pretty much burned all forward progress on my creative practice, but it culminated in a very pleasant Christmas with family and friends, and ultimately, that’s what we really want from the holidays, isn’t it? 2024 retrospective I recently saw a video that suggested you take some time at the end of the year to go back…
Sabbatical Update 4: Unrelenting Calamity When I started this sabbatical , I had a primary goal to develop a consistent creative practice , with a focus on storytelling and linear media. Life had other plans. October and November alone wiped out more than $40,000 of our savings. The entire sabbatical has been marked by hit after hit in an unending succession of expensive crises. The financial…
Sabbatical Update 3: Secondary Trauma Another month down, another set of challenges endured. October’s theme turns out to be “secondary trauma”. The last several weeks have been an onslaught of terrible things happening to the people closest to me. There have been job losses. There have been evictions. There have been mental breakdowns. There have even been deaths. While these things aren’t all…
Sabbatical Update 2: Workshopping and Habit Stacking Last month I talked about our struggle to exit the vacation mindset when we meant to. Since then, my focus has improved significantly. Habit stacking The solution is habit stacking . The idea is to take a habit you already do, and stack the new, desired habit onto it. Here’s how I implemented that over the course of September: After breakfast:…
Sabbatical Update 1: Distractions I’ve been on sabbatical for almost two months, and so far, it has not gone how I expected. The initial plan was to take a break through July, then kick into “working sabbatical” mode in August. That’s because my step-kids were with us for the summer, and we wanted to spend a month focused on doing fun summer activities with them. And we did that! They love…