Playlist for the RESISTANCE – Favorite Five

Cobalt City: RESISTANCE comes out in a few days, and I literally could not be happier to share this book with you all. It was a long process with a hard deadline to get this book ready in time for the mid-term elections, but we made it. Here we are, with the book out roughly […]

“But think of the art!” – Dispatches from Dystopia

There is this common tune, that great art (and great art movements) comes from periods of strife and political unrest. While it’s most famously seen in music, take rap or punk as examples, pushing back against oppression is also a major influence on the British comic book scene in the 80’s. The panacea we’ve been […]

Review: Rites & Desires by Amanda Cherry

First of all, how DARE you! Second, I say that with love. Because as much as I wish I’d created Ruby Killingsworth, I never could have pulled this novel off with such joyful aplomb. See, there’s been a number of stories told in Cobalt City over the years, but never anything like Rites & Desires, […]

A Cover Reveal & a Word About Representation

I’ve shared this cover on Facebook and Twitter the other day, but I was saving putting it up on my blog until I had a few minutes to talk about the book and representation. When looking at old blog posts, I found some talking about working in this setting, on this project, from April of […]

A Conspiracy of Feathers

When I created Anwat al Masewei over twenty years ago, I didn’t ever think it would bring me here. I was engaged to my second wife, an artist, and we had the idea to do a fantasy comic book. Something different. We created a few characters, she did a few drawings, and I sketched out […]

Descent into Dystopia: Cobalt City Edition

I know I’ve discussed the current Cobalt City novel RESISTANCE once or twice before. For new readers (or those with the memory of goldfish), RESISTANCE is the novel I started last November as a way to process what I saw as our country’s decline into fascism and straight up dystopia. I’d hoped to be finished […]

View from the Trenches–On Deep Edits

If you’ve been reading this blog for long enough, you’ve probably heard me talk about Of Rooks and Ravens, the big, weird fantasy novel set in the world of Ravensgate. If you have missed all the randomness about how the project evolved, that’s okay. It’s a Gothic high-fantasy with an ace/aro female academic forced by […]

Evolution of a Character: Gato Loco

I don’t know how other authors do it, but at least in my case, it’s uncommon for a character to leap fully-formed from brain to paper. I find that often times the character comes together in bits and pieces until they’re ready to be seen. And even then, they can continue to evolve over time. […]

After the Huge Crossover, a New Cobalt

I had a realization earlier today as I was plugging away on the next Cobalt City novel. (Yes, the novel is going well. No idea when it will be done, but I’m writing angry and will keep y’all updated here.) The new novel, tentatively titled RESISTANCE, is the closest thing I’ve ever written to what […]

Shifting Gears & Sharpening Swords

In September, I was working on my punk rock fable A Winter Lullaby and taking my time with it because I want to do this one right. It’s the novel I’m taking seriously in the same way I pursued Ink Calls to Ink. But I set it aside to knock out a quick Cobalt City novel […]