Dude.

If you like books that make you think, you’re in the right place.

If crossing the story-streams of intelligent, funny, complex, poignant, and even a touch of subversive sounds interesting to you (or at least not totally offensive), you’re in the right place.

If you’ve ever wondered how successful writers do what they do and wondered what it’s like (or what it takes) to be a full-time creator, you’re in the right place … because I’m an open book. If you want to know something, just ask me.

Even if you’re a writer yourself, and just want to see how another writer works? Then you too are in the right place.

If you’ve seen Being John Malkovitch and want to get inside a creator’s head in exactly the same way except with less John Malkovitch, less Cameron Diaz making friends with a chimpanzee, and more talk about Robocop … then yeah, this is the place for you.

But what I do here goes beyond story, really. And so: If you’re weird — if you live outside the usual nine dots, or feel like Neo living in the Matrix, or are bummed out by the world and bothered by how divided we’ve become — then you’re in the right place, too. Because, my friends, story has the power to change all of that.

If you’ll never “grow up” by the usual definition, if you refuse to lose your sense of wonder and curiosity about the world, and are always, always willing to believe in (or at least hope for) the best … then yeah, you’re in the right place.

Story is the root of who we are as people. It does more than entertain us and make us feel. It also bonds us. It explains everything. And it’s how we make our worlds what we want them to be.

Join me, will you?

Who I am

I’m a bestselling full-time author with over a hundred books to my name.

My best-known book is probably Fat Vampire, which was adapted by the SyFy Network as Reginald the Vampire. I don’t love the name change, but I do love the cast and creators. Some of my other big hits are Pretty Killer, The Beam, Gore Point, Dead City, and of course Unicorn Western.

Before I had a TV show, I was a minor publishing celebrity. My partners and I wrote a book called Write. Publish. Repeat. that became an industry cornerstone and taught a whole lot of people how to write and get published. We also held an annual convention in Austin, Texas called The Smarter Artist Summit, hosted the industry-leading Self Publishing Podcast, and did about ten billion other things … or so my agenda felt at the time.

Before I was a publishing celebrity, I was sort of an internet rabblerouser. I talked a lot about breaking out of the matrix of our everyday lives even back then, and these days my philosophy background — as well as recent books I’ve written — makes me talk about it even more.

Before I was an internet rabblerouser, I was a PhD graduate student in molecular genetics who spent his days counting fruit flies under a microscope and sorting-out the ones with red eyes. But that’s another story.

What I do

I write books and I talk about creativity. It’s not really advice, but I guess you could see it that way if you wanted to. In truth, it’s just my thoughts. I used to teach, but nowadays I don’t teach. If I can do anything for you here, I hope to inspire instead.

Here I am, everyone … whether you want me or not.

What this site is

The long answer, including why I built it in the first place, is in this post.

The short answer is that it’s all my best old shit, plus a bunch of new shit.

The REAL answer is that really all I care about career-wise these days are my books, which are here, the One-Drink Book Club podcast, which is here (for members), and hopefully inspiring (but not teaching) authors with posts like this and this, which I wasn’t even with-it enough to post on my own Substack. Sigh.

If you want to hang with me, this is the only place to do it (other than my actual for-readers website and its associated email-list community, of course). I hate social media with a red-hot passion, so I’m not on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or whatever-the-hell other infuriating soul-suckers are out there now. If you find me on social media … well, whatever you found isn’t me because fuck that shit. I’m kickin’ it old-school, trying to pretend social media never existed or just died a massive fiery death. Which would be awesome, in my opinion. (Also: Get off my lawn.)

If you want to join me, just click the button below. It’s a different subscription than any list of mine you might already be on, and doesn’t need to cost you a dime.