IT’S HAPPENING!!!

I finally finished it! I got all the rewrites done, bought the ISBNs, picked out a publisher (Bones and Narbles), scoured the proof copy, made the final edits, got the gorgeous final cover art from Joseph, and now the day is rapidly approaching!

You can pre-order “Thiside of Anywhere: Volume 1”, Second Edition, slated for release on August 11, 2026.

You’d be astounded (or maybe not) to know how much research goes into fiction books – and that goes triple for books that lean so heavily into folklore and history. My notes and relationships connections look like a conspiracy theory board.

That’s good news for you, gentle readers, because it means that you’ll get some very cohesive and resonant stories in Volume 2.

And, frankly, I have enough material for several more volumes after that. These things end up taking on a life of their own.

And I do mean a life of their own. When these stories get rolling, they develop their own voices, their own directions, and sometimes their own characters – and all of that is derived from my history and experience and research and skill-honing, nowhere else.

I’d thought about going on a rant about the massive plagiarism machines and how much I despise them, but that’s all too obvious. I’ve resisted using any sort of crap like that since my under-grad days when I found out how Grammarly worked – and why it didn’t work when it was “supposed to”.

Obviously, none of that is in any of my books, and I’ve gone to enormous lengths to keep my work away from the grubby little snatchers as well. I doubt I’ve been nearly as successful as I’d like be, but I will still attempt to thwart them at every turn.

It’s been a hotter-than-usual topic of late as I and other creative people actively push against the alleged inevitability of the Asshole Initiative. I do vendor shows, for instance, and there is now a tacit agreement among all the shop-owners to not sign up for any event that uses Abomination Incitement for their advertising. So many “well-meaning” organizers have fallen into the trap of using Asinine Imagery for their flyers that it’s made the selection of events to attend a little slimmer than we’d like.

But I have faith that we’ll make up the deficit in shows that get more traffic with better quality people. I’m really looking forward to having “Thiside: Volume 1” ready for you guys to hold in your hot little hands!

For the record: yes, there will be another ebook version coming out, though you can read the current version over on Campfire right now. And I’m also recording an audiobook for you, now that I figured out which audio editing app actually works with my rig.

However, I will only produce a hardcover version of “Thiside” (or any of my other books) if there is enough demand for it.

You see, I do all of the editing, formatting, and compiling myself. Every version of a book requires a whole new setup, a whole new cover, and a whole new round of editing because it’s not just about change the page sizes or the margins: it’s about tracking where the pages end, how the ornaments line up, and tons of other little adjustments. Plus, the cost for printing is a lot more, and even with print-on-demand services like B&N at the helm, it makes me nervous to put that much effort and work into a book that I might only sell one or two copies of.

(Yes, that means that if you would definitely buy a hardcover of “Thiside” or “Throwback” or any of the other projects I’ve got coming up, let me know, but I’m totally going to hold you to that.)

There’s something I haven’t told you yet about “Thiside”.

Maybe I should have put it up at the front, but I just… I’m not sure how you’ll take it.

See, “Thiside” is the world of monsters and dream-creatures and cryptids and fae and all that, yes, but it’s also the world that I would want to live in. Not that I want to hang out at the Grim Grind Cafe (though that’d be cool) or that I’d want to risk the attention of Xivie (even though she’s a sweetie at heart), but I wrote the characters and their development and arcs in directions that I felt that people should and would grow in, if given the chance.

(Yes, I know you’re not going to have a clue what I’m talking about until you read it, but just come back to this page when you’re done and revisit the ideas.)

Take Dr. Leeds’ whole creaturism thing. It’s really about being your own person, about owning your own story, about being more than the sum of your traumas. Or Marcus’ entire process: he’s imperfect and flawed but still worthy of love. And then there are the multitudinous non-mainstream relationships and genders and interactions because our world is rife with diversity that deserves to be not just celebrated but normalized.

A lot of these stories came from a challenge I received a long time ago that I tended to avoid happy endings, and while I can’t say that I tried to give all these stories happy endings, I think that, as the Story reminds us, it’s because stories so rarely end at all.

I would love it if you would let me tell you this story to its happy middle.

This same article appeared over on DegeSwain, and also Alchemias. Because why not.