A seedy bar in the depths of poverty stands stalwart against the perfect sparkle of the mar-fab city. A nearly sunken boat lures the foolish exile who might try to bring it to dock. A translator unducted from a festival finds themself in trouble they never expected. An unexplained power outage soaks the whole region in sheer chaotic darkness on a moonless night. With no friends left standing, another exile seeks the solace of the end of a life. What else is there? What else could there be?

These breaks in the pattern bring hope. And hope, like a broken pipe of clean water, springs eternal. Or, nearly so.

At the end of society as we know it, no one remembers what disease is. Trap thinks they’ve just caught one, but their friends all disagree. Crow believes there is a film over reality; nobody else notices. In one reality, Riverbank Wildwood is long; in another, two researchers work on their greatest project yet:  carbon dating magnificently old human bones. Seika happens across white gangsters bullying a helpless animal, but when they step in to defend it, the strange animal turns into a magical beast! In the face of a blackening sky, Adris says the community should move, but Ono– the community’s sage–demands the people stand and prepare for the worst.

Whose perspective is right?

Turn the pages of this collection of short stories to find out! From dark, haunting fantasy to dystopian science-fiction, this collection spans a range of worlds. In each story, our protagonist seeks to find answers to their world. They seek connection, relationship, community. They stand in the muck and mire on the razor-thin edge of hope and reach for more.

What will their hand grasp? Dive on in to these pages to find out!

In a world where so much goes wrong, how does one carry on? This collection of stories seeks to answer that question. Dive into dark worlds with characters barely struggling along, and see where the light shines. Go to the lowest places and find what is there to find. For it is only in the breakdown that we see our true selves. For it is when we catch our fallen faces reflected from a broken angle that we can truly see ourselves best.

Why should the world be any different?

Ceremony and lore tie everyone to their world. The stories we keep inside ourselves, and those our community tell to us. Whether it’s a cave with a dark pool of mysteries or the whole ocean itself, the world waits to greet those ready to come into their own.

Chalu recites: “The way of youth is a route laid out by the pattern of my people’s land.
My body carved–as from rock, as from sand.” Kai may not be all that young anymore, but the question plagues them still: “Who am I really?” As a child of the Seventh Circle, today’s naming ceremony should be exciting…but fear grips Mandala’s heart! Amida prepares to sing the song of becoming, but what if the answers the song gives aren’t the right ones? Radaa enters the dark God’s Cave not for herself, but to save her best friend’s life. Luminko, defeated, buries a friend. What good could come for Luminko now?

In this collection, young people with a variety of identities, all from different worlds, find themselves faced with the same question: Who will you be in the face of adversity? Will you stand up for who you know you are when the going gets tough? Crack open the pages of this collection to find out!

Queer love stories in fantastical worlds. Sad love stories in worlds adjecent to ours. Platonic love stories about the people who help us carry on when all is lost. There is so much more to love than just a boy meets girl and happily ever. Dive into these stories to find the old truth: a love by any other name would be as sweet!

This is a collection of short stories all set in the Redemption Universe.

Wait, but what is the Redemption Universe?
I’m glad you asked.

Redemption is the title of my upcoming novel series featuring the characters you see traveling roads and riding horses in these pages. Think of these stories as a teaser, a bird’s eye view into a universe that is about to explode with romance, intrigue, adventure, betrayal, and…well, of course, redemption.

Wait, but why now?

I decided to publish these shorts prior to releasing the novels because I fell in love with them, and I’m sure you will too!
The slow burn of these stories captures what I love so much about building the universe around the Redemption Series. The tangled way in which characters are led to explore their even-more tangled world speaks to the heart of not just the soon-to-be novels, but it speaks to the world in which they’re all set. And it speaks to the world we are living in.

They’re raw and real, full of trauma and healing, full of difficult choices and hard lessons. These are the stories of broken people living in a broken world, trying their hardest to live unbroken lives and never giving up.

I hope, with the current climate of the world, these stories bring us all a little glimmer of hope that no matter what goes wrong, there is always a redemption arc waiting for us.

From Shakespeare to Little Red Riding Hood. This collection doesn’t just retell beloved stories, it queers them, reidentifies them, and casts them in a wonderous and compelling modern light. Dragons and portals to new worlds. Royalty with secrets to keep and wolves in the forest. Dark in the spirit of old fairy tales and light yet shockingly deep in the way of the Bard. Come discover the stories that the Brothers Grimm never dared tell.

Stars and Dark, a collection of five science-fiction stories, takes you to space in the far-flung future. Silicone-based lifeforms, queer non-binary AI, space stations, and queer trans post-earth humans all populate these pages, each character telling their complex and tangled story of life in a vacuum full of pinpricks of light. Let these hopepunk stories transport you to another time and another place in the great cosmos where love and hope are found in the darkest, strangest corners of the universe.