I am scared so much of the time.  Sometimes little thoughts like “your house is on fire” will interrupt my conversations, my eyes will blank, and I will apologize and ask that you repeat that last sentence.  Sometimes my lungs constrict like they’re about to scream, because idk, we haven’t screamed in a while, and there’s probably something we should be screaming about.

I can cope.  I can leave my house.  I can hold a lit match to a candle.  I can snowboard down a mountain even though my brain is constructing all the horrifying images of my broken body airlifted off the resort when it all goes wrong.

And I can write monsters who are small against my subconscious fears, but they are bigger than me, and they stand a greater chance of winning against despair.

I made a mask this summer with eight eyes and a soft fabric face.  I cut a sea witch out of black paper, and painted my favorite peaks in the Tatoosh Mountain Range.  I like making things with my hands, and although my favorite thing to make is stories, I don’t know of any markets that will publish an envelope full of paper cut outs.

That’s what the mask was for.  I did an odd brave thing and put on an eight eyed mask so I wouldn’t stutter so much on camera, and I introduced a couple stories constructed from cut paper.  Would you like to see a thing I made?

In this story, a ship sails from the world you know and into the one where monsters dwell and where mountains keep the waters from falling into space.

Thanks for listening, and for reading, and for continuing to be while the world is so terrifying.  If you need a match, I’ll light one.  If you need a mask, let’s make one.

In publishing news, my story “If We Could Fix the Horizon” just went live on Toasted Cake, episode 168.

Also, I will have a story called “Where You Get Your Ideas” in the upcoming Artemis Rising month with the Cast of Wonders podcast.