interactive fiction, game writing, narrative design, prose & poetry
Vying for Versailles
As the impoverished daughter of a minor aristocrat, how will you gain independence and find love in the scheming court of Louis XIV in Versailles?
An interactive visual novel at Romance Club, this story place in an alternate universe where the Crusades and Reconquista never occurred.
Highfell Grimoires
Born to privilege, gifted in languages and spells, Neil Franklin has planned his brilliant future–from academic accolades to a proper marriage–and is intent upon upholding his family name and honor. The sudden death of his parents shatters all of that, leaving Neil and his younger sister beggared and orphaned.
When Neil’s estranged uncle offers him a bargain that will save him and his sister from debtor’s prison or exile, Neil eagerly agrees. Handing over the family grimoire as collateral for their debt, Neil devotes himself to working as a teacher for wayward youths at a charity school high in the clouds.
But Highfell Hall is not the charity Neil imagines it to be and the young men there aren’t training for the dull lives of city clerks. Amidst the roaring engines and within the icy stone halls, machinations and curious devices are at work. And one man, the rough and enigmatic Leofa, holds the key to the desire that Neil has fled from all his life and a magic as dangerous as treason.
EXCERPT (HTML) | Purchase at Blind Eye Books | Purchase at Weightless Books (eBook) | Barnes & Noble | Amazon.com
Want to hear about Highfell Grimoires before reading it? It was named a best book of 2014 in SF/Fantasy/Horror.
This is a gripping, beautifully written, and thoroughly enjoyable example of steampunk: rife with class injustice, intrigue, and mislaid identities; blending the best parts of the modern thriller and the Victorian sensation novel; and full of endearing, believable characters.
A gripping homage to sensation fiction, this is a thrilling and deftly written debut that seamlessly mixes romance and adventure; easily among the most enjoyable steampunk novels I’ve read.
— Amal El-Mohtar at NPR
Or, you can check out what Dear Author has to say here.
Main Story: Karn, Dominaria
Episode 2: Sand in the Hourglass
Episode 5: A Whisper in the Wind
Side Story:
Phyrexia: All Will Be One: Hard as Anger, Bright as Joy
“Consolidation” in Escape Pod
Lot 1796. Adult. Human. Female bodied. Standard limbs/digits. Immune/health function: class 7, can accommodate high-risk activity. Personality type: reactive/adaptive, ideal for customer service/high-level social interaction. Age: 0. Accident history: 0. Memory: N/A.
Sold.
Wake. Woken. Up. Upload. Connecting… connecting… Social/verbal package received. Movement package, received. Cognitive protocol, received. Download updates? Updating…
Installation complete.
I am.
I am in a room. It is a white room with a steel table. I sit on the steel table. I look at the cabinets, with glass fronts and plastic bottles on the shelves. I look at my hands. I have hands. I have knees poking out from a papery dress. Shrink-wrap plastic clings to my tan calf. Chugging noises. Air gusts, cold, on my skin. I have a body. It is mine.
Words without context. Indigenous lifeforms. Colony outpost. Swarm. Casualties. Military law. Depot, taken. Food shortage. This is how I learn we are located on a space station above a colony belonging to an empire. Humans in the colony’s outposts have been killed.
You can read or listen at Escape Pod.
“Silver Scissors, Golden Ring” in Hybrid Fiction
January 27, 1945. Photographers shot Frantz in Auschwitz. White snow hid the ground’s ugliness, shrouded the bodies of the dead. Liberated survivors filed past, background to his foreground, in the numbing cold.
Frantz posed with his chin up, gazing into the gray distance. He’d get credit that others deserved. A pretty face, his managers called him, pushed out to the front by a massive war effort. He’d only gained access to the camp because Russian soldiers had secured it. By Allied agreement, Rasputin himself had shown Frantz in, giving Frantz first crack at shutting down the Nazi ritual.
Reporters asked Frantz to pose with Hitler’s head. Frantz refused, even though he’d torn it off an hour ago. Himmler and Höss lay dismembered at his feet. Blood spattered him, had melted the snow around him, and frozen. Overhead the interdimensional rift sealed itself, the riven edges of reality crackling with blue lightning.
“How do you feel about killing Hitler?” a reporter asked. “About saving the world?”
“I—I don’t know,” Frantz said. He’d turned seventeen two weeks ago. He wanted to go home.
For sale at Hybrid Fiction.
“Call and Answer” in If This Goes On: The Science Fiction Future of Today’s Politics, ed. Cat Rambo
…We videochat every Sunday and email more often. I see our babies each week, growing larger like a series of snapshots. What can I tell you about my day? What could I possibly be doing that the NSA wouldn’t approve of?
I should burn this.
For sale at Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Amazon.com.
“Mission Log Nuptials,” Unidentified Funny Objects 7, edited by Alex Shvartsman
MISSION GOAL: To successfully court Lieutenant Magrioka’althoa, hereafter to be referred to as Maggie, in order to win eir hand in marriage, because Maggie is the awesomest person in the galaxy. I’d like Commander Hakr—he’s like a father to me—to marry us. Since he announced he’s retiring in a week, I need put the moves on Maggie fast.
For sale at UFO Publishing | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Amazon.com.
“Regenesis,” Little Blue Marble, ed. Katrina Archer
Author’s Note: This little story has now appeared in Little Blue Marble, making it my first ever reprinted short story. Yay!
Beyond a small dark door, in the magical-genomic laboratory of Irindeh University of Subtle Mechanics, Nenadi’s mistake waited. Nenadi guided Anahah, her partner-in-all-things, past the scarred worktops and equipment cabinets, all dyed crimson by the light that filtered through an afternoon dust blizzard. Golden sensory circuits glinted in Anahah’s terracotta skin.
“And you want to bring humans back why?” Anahah asked.
The anthology is for sale directly from the publisher | | Amazon.com.
One Day, My Dear, I’ll Shower You with Rubies, Podcastle, Narrator: Jen R. Albert
“Elusia Cooper,” she said. “I’m the only child of the accused, Verus Bloodrain.”
Her father, clean-shaven and dark-haired, sat at the defendant’s bench. He looked exactly as he had when Fort Beatitude had fallen, about thirty years old, but then magic would do that. He even wore his iconic red leather robes, though his sabre sheath and gun holster hung empty, and no torture implements glittered on his utility belt.
He smiled at her. She smiled back.
<< Read More / Listen at Podcastle >>
Unidentified Funny Objects 6, edited by Alex Shvartsman: Dear Joyce
Dear Joyce,
Last week a wizard abducted me and my best friend R. The wizard claims I’m the rightful heir to the Alabaster Throne, that my destiny is to kill King Mnabapt, to marry a princess, and to restore Riverell to prosperity, and that King Mnabapt has sent a bloodseeker to kill me.
At least the bloodseeker part is true—I saw it rip into Farmer J, R’s dad. I don’t know if R will ever get over that.
As for the rest?
I really, really do NOT want to marry a princess.
Sure, I’m an orphan and I always felt I was destined for greater things, but I thought maybe I’d go to college and become a financial adviser instead of a farmer. Turnips are boring.
What do you think? Have I found my destiny, or has it found me? What should I do?
Captured Homeless Orphan Seeks Explanatory Note
Dear CHOSEN,
You gloss over this part a little, so I feel the need to place this all in caps: YOU HAVE BEEN ABDUCTED…
Persistent Visions: Into a Bloody Susurrus
At first I thought he wanted me for my body, the man with a handlebar mustache in a red wool plush uniform, each button burnished with such care that he had to have secrets.
Continue reading at PerVisions.
Once Upon a Time in the Weird West: From Ancient Grudge to New Mutiny
Once upon a time in the weird west, somewhere outside Wilson Creek, two houses stood divided, not only by a feud but also by the mining claim that’d started the whole sorry business in the first place. James Caplin could hate a Montgomery as well as anyone, but that didn’t mean he wanted to head back to Wilson Creek and spend the rest of his life arguing over the played-out Seanneri Chasm’s precious illudine.
Buy at Dreamspinner | Amazon
Terraform: Regenesis
Beyond a small dark door, in the magical-genomic laboratory of Irindeh University of Subtle Mechanics, Nenadi’s mistake waited. Nenadi guided Anahah, her partner-in-all-things, past the scarred worktops and equipment cabinets, all dyed crimson by the light that filtered through an afternoon dust blizzard. Golden sensory circuits glinted in Anahah’s terracotta skin.
Continue reading at Terraform.
excised organs
small as pearls, seeds
explode; furry balsam pods in a palm
eaten by my own body
the tools — so small — left such precise holes
I couldn’t poke a hooked cockle-burr into my body with my pinky
I’m writing an interactive autobiography in Ren’Py. It’s a pet project that explains the importance of literacy in my life. It dives into neurodivergence, etc., through the use of animations. I’m working on it in Ren’Py, coding and writing and illustrating.
A full bibliography is available upon request.