Rich Disinformation Online
One Grain of Sand is a near-future dystopian world where people are treated as expendable, and one inmate must choose between survival and becoming a sacrifice to the system. What was your moral goal when writing this novel, and do you feel you’ve achieved it?
My goal in writing the novel was speculative and extrapolative: I wanted my imagination, my subconscious, to answer the hypothetical question of “What could happen if the US continued on its current trajectory, and many of the secret programs that are now public continued in kind, across the board?” When I began writing One Grain of Sand a few years ago, I thought some of the trajectories were too extreme. But then I began seeing a lot of what’s in the book actually take shape before our very eyes. So, do I feel I’ve achieved the goal of answering that question? To a degree. I think it shows what could happen, what is happening (although obviously not literally), and where the country is headed sociologically. If Books Two and Three go the way I want them go, those two books remaining in the trilogy will answer that question more robustly.
Your future America feels exaggerated yet disturbingly familiar. Which real-world trends most influenced this setting?
I think the question also partially answers itself in that it feels disturbingly familiar. It wouldn’t feel familiar if we as a society weren’t seeing elements in and of the book, of that future today. The trends I saw influencing were, at least some of them, I think is how so much of daily discourse has become rich in hate, cruelty, bias, exploitation of fear, fear of education, of fairness and equality, of multiculturalism – when in reality science, history, biology, and history all show us that embracing multiculturalism, culture, education, fairness, equality, and embracing a future-minded perspective all make us as humans healthier emotionally and creatively. No society that shuts itself off from those forces survives for very long. Logic alone dictates there is no way for a sealed-off culture to make it, while the opposite makes it thrive. The rich disinformation online, hobbling of education systems and practices, and the turning away from our shared humanity; those are trends I find distasteful, fear-based, and tribal.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Themes run rampant in the novel for a reason, because we’ve abandoned our role as responsible stewards of the future. Some of those themes are democracy and equality crumbling, hedonism rising, and climate change assuming its natural path, whether we believe in it or not.
When will Book Two be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?
I plan to write Books Two and Three at the same time, and I’m currently working on outlines for both now. Where will those Books take readers? I want to facetiously say “straight to Hell,” but the idea of the trilogy as a whole (and hence Books Two and Three) is to show the reader as full a picture as I possibly can muster of where I see this speculative, potential, hypothetical future headed, what I see it manifested as, depicting what matters most in the grand scheme of our lives when it’s all said and it’s time to lie our collective head upon the pillow one last time. The characters have lives, emotions, back-stories, hopes, and dreams that have to be resolved at least partially, and they can’t just be left alone with no one to tell that to.
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In which citizens must compete in reality TV programs for healthcare, citizenship, the right to travel, higher education, or “freedom” to live in private segregated communities?
In which tribes of hybrid creatures live in primitive outlier compounds scattered throughout the country; societal outcasts and rejects from government-sponsored human genome experiments gone awry?
What would you do if you were falling for a beautiful biracial climatologist and artist who might be a member of a radical “terrorist” network?
And whose twin sister “might” be part of that same group or a secret government organization oppressing and controlling the public?
And you knew someone, somewhere, probably has placed a bullseye on your head?
This is the future in which Noah Harpster, humble incongruent anachronism, pickpocket, and three-time loser, finds himself cast.
Like you, he’s got some tough decisions to make with too few options.
To the government, and everyone else, he’s just one more grain of sand in society’s hourglass.
And time’s running out….
Forge New Paths
Goldie Bird follows an 11-year-old girl who copes with her sister leaving for college and her great aunt’s death on the same day, and navigates grief and loneliness, while searching for belonging. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
When a longtime friend read through my first draft of the book, she asked me what percent of Goldie was ME. I hadn’t thought that I was writing bits of who I was into my main character, but in looking back, how could I not? We write what we know, and fiction gives us the power to embellish our own experiences and forge new paths and outcomes. I have memories of traveling with my mother and siblings to lay my great-grandmother to rest. The backdrop to my story, the small town of Charlotte, Illinois, is a fictional place that takes much inspiration from bits of things and places that have meant something to me. My characters, too, have qualities that remind me of pieces of personalities and mannerisms of people I have known.
Goldie experiences multiple losses at once. Why was it important to layer those changes together?
Goldie must certainly have anticipated spending time differently with her mother once Elise would be at college. She never got to find out what that would be like, though, as the timing of her great aunt’s death and the events that followed changed the course of what Goldie had expected. I believe the compounded losses have a strong impact on Goldie as well as readers of the book—Goldie has much to overcome and figure out, and the pain is magnified by her own grief and her mother’s unavailability. Goldie must figure out how to navigate her days as she settles into her new place in her family.
Why weave in references to The Little Prince, and what does that story mean to Goldie?
Goldie’s first and subsequent encounters with Kip revolved around The Little Prince, a book assigned to Kip as a class project. Goldie had also read the book with her beloved sister before she left for college. The book serves as a connection to Kip and to Elise, but also, as the story progresses, to Goldie’s father, who highlighted part of the text before sending his copy of The Little Prince to Goldie. Goldie finds parallels with characters in the book as she explores her new relationships.
The “small world” realization near the end is powerful. Why was that moment important?
I believe Goldie’s discovery of who her father is showed her that we are always growing and changing, and when we are going through losses and challenges, there is also hope—and there are new, joyful discoveries waiting for us.
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But when she joins her mother for a trip to Heritage where her late aunt lived, Goldie forms an unlikely friendship with Kip, a sweet boy with an infectious sense of adventure. Kip shows Goldie the carefree thrills of birch bending and secret caves where the two bond over common experiences and escape the complexities of the adults around them.
As she reluctantly returns to her life, Goldie must adjust to being a middle schooler as things at home become more challenging. Despite her deep love for her sister and mother, Goldie feels unsure of where she fits in their lives, forcing her to grapple with the bittersweet aspects of growing up and letting go of the way things used to be.
With her frequent letters from Kip and her new friend, Kate, by her side, Goldie tries to navigate all that comes her way on the quest for acceptance and belonging. In this timeless, coming-of-age novel, Goldie symbolizes the universal experience of deep familial connections, friendship, and self-identity.
Meaningful Struggles
Universe 25: When Perfect is Not Enough revisits the infamous mouse utopia experiment by John B. Calhoun and asks whether abundance, convenience, and perfection are unraveling modern society. Why was this an important book for you to write?
The Universe 25 experiment conducted by John B. Calhoun fascinated me because it forces us to confront an uncomfortable idea. What if collapse does not begin with scarcity, but with comfort? In Calhoun’s controlled mouse utopia, food was unlimited, predators were absent, and physical needs were met. Yet social breakdown still followed. When I looked at modern society, I could not ignore the parallels. We have unprecedented access to food, technology, entertainment, and comfort. But anxiety, division, loneliness, and identity confusion are rising.
This book was important to write because it challenges the assumption that progress automatically equals improvement. Material abundance does not guarantee psychological resilience or social cohesion. I wanted to explore whether we have removed too many meaningful struggles from life and whether, in doing so, we may also be removing purpose. The experiment becomes a mirror. It asks whether we are building a civilization that satisfies appetite but neglects responsibility.
For me, Universe 25 was not about condemning modernity. It was about questioning it. That questioning is necessary if we want to avoid repeating patterns we do not fully understand.
What does Universe 25 suggest about purpose, struggle, and shared responsibility?
One of the strongest lessons of Universe 25 is that purpose cannot be manufactured by comfort alone. The mice were physically secure, yet socially disoriented. Roles dissolved. Hierarchies collapsed. Parental instincts failed. Without meaningful challenges, many withdrew into passive existence. Calhoun called this the “behavioral sink.”
In human terms, struggle is not simply an obstacle. It is a framework that shapes identity. Responsibility to family, to community, and to something beyond the self creates cohesion. When everything is provided but nothing is required, a strange emptiness can emerge. Shared responsibility becomes optional, and optional responsibility is rarely sustained.
The experiment suggests that abundance without structure weakens societies. Struggle, when constructive and shared, builds resilience. It forces cooperation, adaptation, and accountability. Purpose often arises from overcoming difficulty together. Remove the need to contribute, and you risk removing the sense of belonging.
Where do you think the analogy breaks down—and where does it hold strongest?
The analogy breaks down where human complexity begins. We are not mice in cages. Humans possess self-awareness, culture, philosophy, and the ability to reflect on our own decline. We can change course. We can redefine meaning. We can recognize when something is wrong and act intentionally to correct it. The mice could not hold conferences about their existential crisis.
However, the analogy holds strongest in the realm of social behavior under artificial abundance. When natural pressures disappear, internal pressures often increase. Competition shifts from survival to status. Identity becomes fragile. Isolation grows. Social fragmentation accelerates. In that sense, the parallels are powerful.
Universe 25 does not claim we are destined to follow the same path. It simply shows that removing hardship does not automatically produce harmony. That lesson remains deeply relevant.
You end the book with cautious hope—what gives you that hope?
Hope comes from awareness. The very fact that we can examine experiments like Universe 25 and debate their implications sets us apart. Humans are capable of adaptation on a conscious level. We can reintroduce meaning, responsibility, and shared goals deliberately rather than waiting for collapse to force it upon us.
History shows cycles of decline and renewal. Societies fragment, but they also reform. Individuals rediscover purpose. Communities rebuild. The modern world is not doomed because it is comfortable. It is only at risk if it forgets that comfort must be balanced with contribution.
Cautious hope comes from the belief that struggle does not need to be catastrophic to be meaningful. We can choose growth over decay. That choice remains available to us.
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Instead, it became a nightmare. Violence, neglect, and sterility spread until the entire colony died out. The project became infamous as Universe 25—a chilling lesson about the dangers of comfort without purpose.
This book retells the story of Universe 25 and draws its unsettling parallels to our own time. From falling birth rates to lonely megacities, from consumerism to digital grooming, the echoes are hard to ignore. Humanity dreams of freedom and abundance—but what if those dreams are exactly what destroy us?
With sharp insight and dark humor, Universe 25: When Perfect Is Not Enough is not just about mice. It is about us. And it carries a warning: be careful what you wish for.
Coal Dust on Purple Asters: A Trilogy of Short Fiction
Coal Dust on Purple Asters is a linked trio of stories set in a small Kentucky coal county, framed by a brief, personal introduction from the author about his own mountain family and the memories that shaped him. We follow Vergie Hicks and her girls as a cheating husband, a sudden flood, and an act of sacrifice tear their home apart. Then we move into the Depression years with May and Zeke Owens, their hungry boys, two wild outlaw brothers, and a house fire that burns away more than old boards yet leaves a stubborn core of hope. In the final story, the focus widens to miners like Clarence Gibson, his friend Estill, and the schoolchildren in Jip Creek, and we see how coal, danger, and pride wrap around several generations in the same valley. Across all three pieces, the book keeps circling the same things: coal dust and purple asters, hard work and tiny bright bits of beauty. The result feels like one long family album, even when the characters change.
I felt the writing land in a very sensory way. The pages are full of simple images that linger, like hens clinging to rafters while floodwater rises, or a child hanging to a branch above churned mud, or a Purple Heart medal turning up in warm ashes beside a few cracked teacups. The scenes are clear in my head, almost like I watched an old film instead of reading a book. I liked how the dialogue keeps the Appalachian speech patterns without turning the characters into jokes. The rhythm of that talk feels loving and careful. Sometimes the descriptive passages run a little long for my taste, and the similes stack up, so a scene can feel heavy when the emotion is already strong. Even then, I never felt lost. The pacing in the flood chapter in particular stays tight, so the dread just builds and builds until the house finally goes. By the time Wiley dives back into that mess to reach his family, I was rooting for him and dreading what I knew was coming.
What I really liked, though, were the ideas underneath the stories. There is a hard look at men who drink, drift, and hurt the people who love them, but there is also room for them to be brave and soft in their last moments. Wiley is both the man who cheats and the man who saves. Zeke is the father who cannot keep steady work and also the man who stands in front of his burned-out house and says they will build again. I liked how the book never lets poverty turn into a simple tragedy tale. The people bend. They scheme. They do questionable things to keep food on the table and keep danger away from kids. May’s decision to set her own home on fire so her brothers will stay away is wild and a little shocking, and I could still feel the tight knot of fear that pushes her there. I also enjoyed the way the last story steps back and talks about mining itself, about pride in the work and the pull to leave for the sake of your lungs and your children. Hearing Clarence talk about coal like faith while Estill talks about coal like a slow death gave me that uneasy feeling you get when two truths sit side by side and both sound right.
The book would be a strong fit for readers who enjoy regional fiction, family sagas in short form, or historical stories about working people and small towns. If you like character-driven plots, clear scene-setting, and stories that do not flinch from trouble but still reach for grace, this will likely work for you. I would recommend Coal Dust on Purple Asters to anyone who wants to spend time in a vivid place with flawed, stubborn, loving people and to anyone curious about the human cost behind those old coal seams and mountain stories.
Pages: 89 | ASIN : B0G8RX9NV8
Born of Dirt & Dust
Born of Dirt & Dust is a sharp-edged collection of speculative flash & short fiction that keeps changing masks from urban dread, grief-myth, social horror, bruised fairy tale, while staying faithful to one obsession: what people do to survive when the world won’t stop chewing. Across stories like “Smokin’ with Death,” “Pretending,” “The Last of Our Kind,” and the title piece, Renee Coloman drops me into intimate, first-person rooms where love is feral, hope is conditional, and the aftertaste is usually smoke.
What hit me first was the voice: immediate, unvarnished, and weirdly tender even when it’s being crude. In “Smokin’ with Death,” the narrator sizes up Katelyn, pink hair, tattoos like warnings, a body already half-ghosted by addiction, and the dialogue snaps like a lighter: transactional, defensive, heartbreakingly ordinary. The story doesn’t ask me to approve of anyone; it asks me to recognize them, which is harder and more bracing.
As I kept reading, the book’s recurring textures started to feel intentional rather than merely intense: cigarettes as countdowns, bodies as battlegrounds, love as a dare. “The Last of Our Kind” is a brutal little poem of devotion, an oxygen tank, a warning label, and a woman who can’t stop reaching for flame anyway, as if self-destruction is the last language she and her husband share. And in “Born of Dirt & Dust,” Coloman leans into mythic framing, Adam’s rib, inherited venom, a woman trying to outgrow the “dirt and dust” she’s been assigned, turning family damage into something almost ritualistic. Sometimes the prose repeats or swells on purpose, like a chant you can’t quite step out of; for me, that worked more often than it wobbled.
Coloman’s collection is for readers who want speculative fiction, flash fiction, horror, dark fantasy, magical realism, stories that move fast but leave residue, stories willing to be ugly in the service of truth. If you’ve loved the bite-sized dread and emotional torque of Carmen Maria Machado, you’ll recognize the same appetite for turning private pain into a blade with a shine on it. Born of Dirt & Dust is a small book of big hauntings, each story a matchstrike in the dark.
Pages: 215 | ASIN : B0FZLMZR77
Article Five: A World War Three Novel
Article Five, by J.D. Duncan, is a geopolitical military thriller that kicks off with coordinated attacks and covert sabotage that shove NATO toward its most frightening promise: collective defense. We bounce between the pressure-cooker halls of London, field operations chasing a sleeper agent tied to bombings near St Paul’s tube station, and the widening war footprint stretching to places like Estonia and Moscow. The spine of the plot follows Prime Minister Powell as he tries to hold the line politically and morally while Tony Abbott and John Rafferty chase the human machinery behind the chaos, including Andrew Barker and an injured would-be defector, Gregov Maximov. It all drives toward a tense, exhausted ceasefire and a messy “angry peace,” not a clean victory.
What I liked most is how the book moves. Duncan uses tight point-of-view hops and quick location stamps to keep you aware of the board while still letting you feel the sweat in the room. Powell’s sections especially land for me because they aren’t written like a superhero fantasy. They feel like a person trying to sound steady while everything is shaking, including the uncomfortable reality that allies might hesitate when you need them most. The action scenes are crisp without turning into a tech brochure. There’s a memorable early sequence with a special forces team taking down a Russian helicopter to grab its electronics, and you can almost smell the burning fuel and wet forest in the aftermath. It’s the kind of detail that makes the genre work: specific enough to feel real, but still readable if you don’t speak “military” fluently.
I also appreciated the author’s willingness to sit in the moral grey. The spy stuff isn’t framed as glamorous. It’s transactional, paranoid, and sometimes petty in a relatable way. Rafferty, for example, is funny and sharp, but also tired, cynical, and constantly measuring people for leverage. That energy pairs well with the book’s bigger idea: wars are not only fought with tanks and missiles, but with narratives, timing, and information control. Maximov’s “evidence hidden in plain sight” angle, tucked into something as mundane as a fishing-rod website, is a perfect little metaphor for modern conflict. And Barker’s thread, from coerced bombing logistics to his end, left me cold in the right way. It’s not melodramatic. It’s bleak, brisk, and believable.
I’d recommend Article Five to readers who like their thrillers political, modern, and a little unsettling, the kind that makes you put the book down for a second and think. If your happy place is the Tom Clancy and Brad Thor lane, but you want something with a more current-media pulse (there’s even a nod to BBC coverage and the churn of online commentary), you’ll probably have a good time here. It’s best for people who enjoy big-stakes geopolitics and the smaller, grimy human choices underneath it, and who don’t need a tidy ending to feel satisfied.
Pages: 341 | ASIN : B0FPCZ6V8B
Sugarcane Saint: The First Book of Ruth
Sugarcane Saint: The First Book of Ruth is a hard-hitting family story set in early twentieth-century Georgia. It follows young Ruth Shurlington as she grows up under the shadow of Stone Mountain, in a house full of siblings, chores, church talk, war news, and quiet fear. In another county, we also see Leonidas Brantley, a machinist with pride, shame, and a cruel streak that spills into his small home. The book lays out how war, poverty, religion, and everyday racism shape these families and tighten around the girls in them. By the time the author’s opening note and the prologue click together, it is clear this is the “seduction” phase of a bigger cycle of abuse, and the first part of a planned trilogy about hurt that runs through three generations.
I felt the writing was vivid and sensory. The author has a knack for small details. The sagging porch, the smell of lamp oil, the ash that looks like strange white snow, the way chickens move when a child scatters feed. The dialogue is thick with Southern rhythm and slang, but it is easy to follow, and it gives each person a clear voice. I liked how scenes jump from quiet domestic work to sharp danger in just a line or two. One moment Ruth is playing in the hen run. The next she is walking through a burned town that used to feel safe. The Bible verses at the start of each section set the mood without feeling like a lecture, and they fit the way these families actually talk and think. The prose is controlled, but it still feels authentic.
The opening scenes of violence and the picture of a mother holding her own daughter down are sickening. They are also written with a cool, steady eye that refuses to look away. I could feel the author wrestling with the question she states up front. How can a woman be gentle and loving and still help terrible things happen in her home. The pacing leans into that slow dread. We see the fire in the town, the boys treated like little men, the girls pushed back to the edge of the room, the casual racism in everyday talk, the constant reach for God as if He is the only safety net around. That build-up made the heavy scenes hit even harder, because by then I cared about Ruth, her brothers, her cousins, even the flawed adults who are already bent by their own history.
What stayed with me most was the book’s idea of how harm grows inside a family and inside a culture. The story keeps tying the private wounds in the house to bigger forces outside. Old men still raging about the Civil War. Lost land. New wars that pull sons away. A system that tells white men they should rule everything and everyone. A church world that talks about mercy while kids hide from belts and fists. The book does not excuse any of the abuse. It also does not flatten people into simple monsters or saints. A father can work himself to the bone for his farm and still break his children. A mother can pray and bake birthday cakes and still turn her face away when her daughter begs for help. I appreciated that the author is open about building this from family stories and from research, and about her own need to understand rather than just to punish. That gives the whole thing a searching, haunted feel instead of a neat, moralizing tone.
I would recommend Sugarcane Saint to readers who want historical fiction that looks straight at family violence, racism, and faith without soft focus. It is a good fit if you like long family stories, rich settings, and morally messy people, and if you can handle graphic scenes of abuse and emotional distress. This first book feels like the start of a brave and painful journey, and it left me wanting to follow Ruth’s story through the rest of the trilogy and see what kind of healing, if any, can come after so much harm.
Pages: 410 | ASIN : B0F94MTK18
Individual Responsibility
The Way to World Peace is a bold manifesto arguing that world peace is not a fantasy but the next evolutionary step for humanity, if we are willing to change how we think, govern, and see one another. Why do you believe this idea’s time has now come?
The time has come because humanity no longer has the luxury of delay. For most of history, our conflicts were destructive but limited. Today, they are not. We now possess the ability to destroy civilization through nuclear war, environmental collapse, or the breakdown of our own social systems. When a species develops that level of power, it must also develop the wisdom to use restraint. That is where we are.
We are also more connected than ever before. Our economies, communication systems, and environmental challenges are global. There is no such thing as a distant war or an isolated crisis. The pressures we feel are signs that the old model of fear and deterrence is no longer sustainable. Peace is no longer an abstract ideal. It is a requirement for survival.
In your view, what is the single biggest obstacle to world peace right now?
Fear. Fear has shaped our institutions, our policies, and our understanding of security.
We have built systems based on the belief that violence is inevitable. That belief sustains militarization and justifies deterrence. Violence is not inherent in our DNA. It is learned behavior, reinforced over generations. When we accept war as a permanent condition of life, we remove our responsibility and power to change it.
The greatest obstacle is not a particular nation or ideology. It is the assumption that peace is unrealistic. As long as humanity believes that assumption, it will continue preparing for war and calling it security.
How do communities begin shifting from fear-based thinking to unity?
The shift begins with individual responsibility. Governments reflect the level of awareness within the societies they govern. When individuals disengage and assume that leaders alone are responsible, little changes.
Communities move toward unity when people redefine strength. Strength is not domination. It is the ability to forgive, to cooperate, and to manage conflict without violence. It requires the same level of organization and commitment that we have historically devoted to war. It also requires raising children with the expectation that peace is possible.
Unity does not eliminate disagreement. It changes how disagreement is handled. When enough individuals reject fear as a guiding principle, the culture begins to change.
What gives you the most hope about humanity right now?
The longing for peace.
Across cultures and nations, people want stability, dignity, and a future for their children. That desire has never disappeared. It is evidence that peace is aligned with our nature.
Humanity has changed before. Practices once considered normal are now widely rejected. That tells me we are capable of growth. The same human mind that rationalized war can choose cooperation.
What gives me hope is that more people sense that the current path cannot continue. Awareness is growing. When enough individuals understand that peace is necessary for survival, change will follow.
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In The Way to World Peace: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Kenneth Paul Callison argues that war, nuclear weapons, environmental collapse, and fear-based politics are not inevitable facts of life, but learned failures of human consciousness. Drawing on history, science, philosophy, and universal spiritual principles, this provocative book challenges the belief that violence is part of our nature and offers a radically different path forward.
From nuclear deterrence and global conflict to collective awakening and universal law, Callison explores why humanity has normalized suffering. Peace can be achieved when individuals and societies shift from fear, separation, and control to compassion, responsibility, and unity. This is not a utopian fantasy, but a call to evolve: to run peace with the same intention and discipline that humanity has long applied to war.
If you believe the world can do better and that humanity’s survival depends on it, this book will challenge how you see history, power, and your role in shaping the future.
Read it now and join the movement toward a peaceful, unified human race.
