Recently:
Mote Stories commissioned me to write a role-playing game specific to their very unique online role-playing software (if you like to play via chat that automatically formats like prose fiction, it’s for you) and I wrote the game Over Easy for them. It is a zippy heist premise with a New England diner setting and it’s my love letter to roadside attractions. I got so into creating this game that I built a whole Townie Name Generator too as part of my own design process.
My debut short fiction collection, Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel, was chosen as the winner for a 2021 Lammy Award in their Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror category. (At some point very soon, my publisher and I are going to update the book to include the award medallion on the cover and fix some of the stray copy-editing issues that I know exist in there.)
Moon was also a top-ten finalist for the Locus Awards in their Collection category.
Moon has also been included on the fiction “Must Read” list for the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards. The much shorter award and honors list for this award will be announced in the fall.
I’m continually honored and delighted that this book is connecting with people.
What I’m up to Currently:
I’m working on a secret commission that I can at least say is going to be tie-in fiction for a video game involving robots with huge moods.
I’ve also signed a contract to expand another game I wrote into a more full-length table-top role playing book. I should be able to say more about that in coming months.
Writing for games turns out to be a blast and I want to do more of it.
I’m also, bit by bit, working on what I hope will be a second book. I don’t know if it will be “novel length” but it will be “novel shaped.” It’s set in Salem, where I live.
I’m actively seeking literary agent representation for this one, but that is tough to do while still writing it.
I know that I still have yet to post the third and final act of a script I’ve been putting up here for paid subscribers only, and part of the reason for that was holding onto the technicality that it has never been published in full anywhere before. But I think in the end, it’s an odd length and an odd format for me and I’m going to self publish the entire thing. You can read it if you are a paid subscriber or you can wait for me to release the whole thing, probably on itch and/or gumroad.
Specifically, I’d really like to work with a few artists to turn the script into a graphic work, whether that means comic or just very illustrated graphic-designy thing I’m not entirely sure just yet. Would people crowdfund for that kind of thing? I truly can’t square with myself whether or not just paying an artist out of pocket for the whole thing is the most frivolous kind of vanity publishing or if that’s simply “being a producer.”
Unrelated to all of this, I am slowly getting back into running, which I missed.
I’m growing basil, scallions, peppers, mint, and decorative sweet potato on my window sills. I also have two pothos. My tomato is still alive but stopped flowering and I’m sort of okay with that. It just hangs out on the loft.
Love,
Julian