The Dirt of Art
Hello friends,
I’m writing to you without the condensed limit of social media and the algorithmic need to capture your attention span before you scroll haphazardly to the next Reel and the next TikTok and the next and the next and on and on in a delirious pattern of time wasted (guilty as charged).
Over the past couple of years, my relationship to my words changed. It was just as strong, just as necessary, but there was a tint of something other and rushed over it (which paradoxically made it harder and slower for me to write completely). This change coincided with a cultural shift that put a strange expectation on indie publishing (then traditional publishing, which has, too, been infected) to be fast, faster, fastest. The words inside a book came to matter less than the packaging, the marketing rollout, the character art, the shouting, the aesthetic of it all.
I enjoy all of those things.
But when I was dearly in love with reading and writing for the first time in my life, I had no money of my own (as a child) and I did not grow up in a wealthy household. I took whatever books I could get and I devoured them. If special editions existed, I was blissfully unaware. What mattered was the words. The story. The feeling of being elsewhere, or rather, being in the fantasy with the characters.
The past few years, particularly since we all awkwardly, zombie-like emerged from the haze and toil of Covid, has taken some of that spark away. It’s hard to explain, but I imagine you’ve felt it too. The rush, the competition of collection and consuming and producing, the weird way that the dirt of the art, the essence of it, matters less and less with each passing day.
But I want to return to the soil.
To lose myself in my own worlds for the sheer pleasure and work of it, not the outside voices or the thousands of opinions shouting and screaming about what we should write, should read, should do next.
I’ve never worked well that way. In following my own path, I’ve released more books over the past nine months than I had in years trying to follow the direction of the crowded tide.
So welcome to my playground. Here you’ll find the stories that are bursting from my brain. The ones I can’t keep quiet, even if I tried (and try I have).
Fewer Saints is currently in production. I am enjoying this sequel to Lesser Wolves, and the mystery of Lydia, Storm, and Sloane. This book will release April 24th. It is part thriller, part ancient love story, part mystery. Violence, gentle monsters, and chaotic peace all live inside its pages.
There is a story of mine I read over last night to ensure it was “worthy” of being read. Considering I stayed up far too late finishing it, my own work (which is rare for me and most authors, I’ve noticed), it is. This is not connected to any of my other novels. It has a drop of magic inside of it (or maybe thirteen drops). I envision a series of short works to be devoured across the span of a night or ten with this new world. You can find hints of it on Pinterest, but I think it’ll be a book I simply offer up one Friday morning or Sunday night and say, “Here. Have at it.”
If you are in my reader’s group on Facebook, Order of KV, you’ve unknowingly read an excerpt. As a hint? The MMC has an eyebrow piercing.
Violently, In Pieces now has a cover, and graphics are being made extremely soon. We’ll get there when we get there, but I don’t imagine it will be long. This 2019 novel of mine reads like one, but in a way that feels manic and obsessive, which is entirely how I used to write. Now, I do it in shorter bursts. Then, it was as if I wrote fully formed narratives in an evening.
All of my preorders, aside from my fantasy novel, will be cancelled. I’m returning to the dirt of the art, to the joy of obsessing over characters and plots and secrets and the romance that claws just below the surface. In that return, this place—the home of Alexandria, if you will—will be a cult member’s main hangout, second only to Patreon. Signed books will soon be sold here on this website, and first, we’ll have a special edition of These Monstrous Ties. You should be able to preorder this next week. It will be a yearly limited edition, open only to order in time for spooky season, then closed into the casket until this time again next year.
Keep an eye on Alexandria if you’re interested. You never know when it might crawl out of the grave.
See you soon.
Love,
