Blog Archives
During a Shared Psychedelic Experience
a three body solution centers around three lovers who become unlikely leaders trying to save the Earth from global collapse. What inspired you to write a three body solution?
If I can be completely honest, the idea was “downloaded” during a shared psychedelic experience with two other people. Like much of the best science fiction, the novel exaggerates reality just enough to help us see it more clearly. My queer reply is that the book edges reality just enough to make readers blush, laugh, and hopefully think.
One of my closest friends is Thai and fascinated by aliens, so TaDoo was born. My partner of eighteen years is Vietnamese, deeply logical, and yet somehow equally devoted to RuPaul’s Drag Race, so Tâm emerged. And then there is me—an empathic, slightly overwhelmed middle-aged human trying to make sense of a world that often feels like it is unraveling.
One night, squeezed together on an all-too-small bed, dreaming about a larger Murphy bed, struggling with an Alexa that refused to play the right music, something unexpected happened. We shared a vision of a future that felt more hopeful, more connected, and more playful than the one currently being offered to us.
By morning, we realized we had all experienced something remarkably similar. QuBit and the advanced tech MMMurphyBed were envisioned, the characters followed, and eventually a three body solution emerged.
At its heart, the book asks a simple question: What if we could bottle our best moments of mortality and connection and share them with humanity?
Which came first: the relationship between Chip, Tâm, and TaDoo, or the larger vision of a world in crisis?
The world crisis came first. I’ve been wrestling with existential distress far longer than I’ve been imagining alternative relationship structures.
As Lily Tomlin famously said, “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.” That line has haunted and inspired me for years.
The more I looked at our political divisions, ecological challenges, and collective loneliness, the more I found myself imagining leaders who approached power differently. What might happen if tenderness, honesty, vulnerability, and cooperation were treated as strengths rather than weaknesses?
The thruple became my laboratory for exploring that question.
The three protagonists are imperfect, messy, occasionally ridiculous, and often in over their heads. Yet they keep choosing each other. In a world increasingly organized around fear, I wanted to imagine people organizing themselves around connection.
Maybe that’s what I mean by “pink magic.” Not perfection. Not ideology. Just the radical belief that love, creativity, humor, and community might still have a role to play in shaping our future. I write with the following mottos in my heart:
#BooksNotBombs
#DreamMoreDreadLess
Were there particular science fiction authors who influenced your work?
Not all of my influences are strictly science fiction, but the writers who stayed with me are the ones who cracked open reality in some way. They each affirmed something that influences how and why I write.
Cixin Lui gets a big gay hug for his daring The Three Body Problem series and for acknowledging character development was not his primary interest.
C. S. Lewis gave me portals to a land with talking animals and a way to observe grief.
Stephen King gave me permission to be strange, sprawling, and a little haunted. Daniel
Quinn’s Ishmael helped me think differently about humans, animals, and culture. Octavia
Butler showed me how speculative fiction can be prophetic, political, and deeply embodied.
Ocean Vuong may not be sci-fi, but his prose reminds me that language can wash over you without having to comprehend every word. And David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas* helped me appreciate stories that move across time, bodies, and identities.
Also, full confession: I may be one of the rare unicorns who loved the Wachowskis’ film adaptation of Cloud Atlas even more than the book. Queer cinematic heresy, perhaps, but I stand by it.
What was the most challenging aspect of writing such an ambitious and genre-blending novel?
Believing I had permission to write it.
The book blends queer romance, science fiction, grief work, neuroscience, primatology, psychedelics, spirituality, and political commentary. Conventional publishing wisdom would probably suggest picking one lane. Instead, I decided to create a traffic jam.
I also relied on a great deal of support along the way: the encouragement of my partner, insights from psychedelic experiences, and AI tools that occasionally helped untangle my famously long-winded sentences.
The deeper challenge wasn’t writing 600-plus pages. It was trusting that the story deserved to exist.
I know some readers may use the book as a bedtime companion, while others may discover it works equally well as a yoga block or doorstop. I’m genuinely okay with either outcome.
At some point, every creator faces the same question: “Just because I can, should I?” For this book, my answer was yes.
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Runner-Up – Alternative Future
Honorable Mention – Unconventional Romance
Welcome to the world of a three body solution-a daringly subversive and juicy tale that reimagines what it means to save humanity.
At its heart is Chip, Tâm, and TaDoo-a queer thruple-turned-global leaders united by love and an uncanny knack for tackling the impossible. In a world teetering on the edge of collapse, these unlikely heroes rise to power as the self-proclaimed MMMperors: Men of Mind and Magic. With humor as sharp as their strategies and compassion as boundless as their dreams, they embark on humanity’s most daunting challenge yet: saving Earth herself.
Chip, the globe-trotting empathic healer, struggles to reconcile kin’s enlightened wisdom with the absurdities of leadership. Tâm, the silver fox scientist and reluctant leader, balances their razor-sharp mind with an unexpected flair for drag, channeling their alter-ego, Dr. Phở-nomenal, to inspire a world hungry for hope. And then there’s TaDoo, the dreamer and cosmic envoy who believes salvation might just arrive aboard a celestial mothership. Together, they weave through a chaotic mosaic of love, resilience, and otherworldly ambition.
This is a story of resilience, connection, and the beauty of trying-even when the outcome seems uncertain. A wild ride that will make you laugh, cry, and reconsider the very fabric of what it means to be human.
Back to the Beach
Back to the Beach by Alistair Sutton is a queer historical coming-of-age novel about Tim, a young gay man who leaves Queensland’s Sunshine Coast for Sydney in 1981, while the story also looks back at the childhood, family tensions, friendships, and betrayals that shaped him. The book moves between Lorikeet Beach in the 1970s and Sydney’s gay scene in the early 1980s, building a portrait of someone trying to understand desire, shame, freedom, and belonging. It is as much about place as it is about people, with the beach, the city, and the body all becoming parts of Tim’s search for himself.
What I liked most was the way Sutton lets the past and present talk to each other. Tim’s adult life in Sydney feels brighter, louder, and more open, but the childhood chapters give that freedom weight. We see the bullying, the awkward friendships, the longing for Saxon, and the complicated pull of family before we see Tim trying to make a life on Oxford Street. That structure works. It reminds us that becoming yourself is rarely clean. You do not just arrive in a new city and shed the old skin in one piece. Some of it sticks. Some of it has to be scraped off slowly.
The writing is rich in period detail, sometimes almost crowded with it, but I found that part of the book’s charm. The restaurants, bars, surf clubs, clothes, music, and social rituals make the world feel lived in rather than staged. Sutton is also candid about sex, and that frankness will not suit every reader, but it does fit the novel’s larger interest in bodies, power, discovery, and risk. I was especially drawn to the author’s choice to give space to characters beyond Tim, including Olivia and Sylvia. Their chapters widen the story and keep it from becoming a simple escape narrative. Still, I did feel the novel occasionally lingers longer than it needs to, especially when a scene has already made its emotional point. Even then, the excess often feels tied to the book’s appetite for life.
I would recommend Back to the Beach to readers who enjoy LGBTQ+ historical fiction, character-driven coming-of-age stories, and novels that explore gay identity with warmth, humor, and a clear sense of social context. It will especially appeal to readers interested in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, the pull of chosen family, and the messy courage it takes to leave home without fully knowing what waits on the other side.
Pages: 339 | ASIN: B0GR8PC61J
Brighter Than The Sun
Brighter Than the Sun by Kit Erikson is a steamy, big-hearted MM romance about Blake Larsen, a performer with a lifelong dream of being seen as more than a body, and Ethan, a business student and diner server who’s still figuring out how to trust his own wants. Blake’s childhood declaration, “I’m going to be a star!” sets the emotional tone for the book. This is a story about ambition, sex work, queer community, and the messy process of building something real with someone who scares you in all the right ways.
Blake is the book’s brightest presence, but he’s written with enough insecurity and weariness to keep him from feeling untouchable. He dances, cams, takes adult work seriously, sews costumes, cares for his friends, and dreams of opening a club where performance can be art, celebration, and livelihood all at once. His dyslexia is also woven into the story with care, especially in how it shapes his relationship with reading, texting, and business ownership without making it his whole personality.
Ethan brings a different kind of tension to the romance. He’s drawn to Blake from the start, but his comfort zone is much smaller than Blake’s world. Watching him move from curiosity to desire to fear to something steadier gives the relationship a satisfying push and pull. The book doesn’t rush past the discomfort that comes from shame, family expectations, and assumptions about sex work. Instead, it lets Ethan stumble, learn, and choose Blake with more honesty each time.
The club storyline gives the romance a strong backbone. The transformation from The Firehouse into Siren makes the book feel like it’s about a whole community, not just one couple. Friends, dancers, performers, bartenders, and chosen family all help create the sense that Blake’s dream is bigger than one spotlight. By the time the group cheers “Siren!” together, the word feels earned, like a promise they’ve all decided to keep.
This is an explicit, affectionate romance with plenty of heat, humor, and backstage chaos, but what lingers most is its belief in being seen clearly. Blake wants applause for his talent, Ethan wants a life that actually fits him, and together they build a space where desire and dignity can exist in the same room. Brighter Than the Sun is tender and full of people trying their best to become braver than they were yesterday.
Pages: 402 | ASIN: B0GXYNK3C7
The Absurdity of All Kinds
The Legend of Leanna Page follows a servant’s daughter with dream-born powers as she challenges kings, kingdoms, and ancient hatred in a fairy-touched world where magic, grief, and prejudice threaten peace. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
This one kind of hit me out of nowhere. I was reading this 19th century novel, and in it the author briefly alludes to this even older story, and I didn’t know what he was referring to. I tried to just context-clue it to keep reading, and in a matter of milliseconds I had this whole legend in my head, and I wasn’t sure whether I remembered it or made it up. When I realized it was mine to write if I pleased, I started thinking about the metaphors within the environment of the legend, and I decided it was particularly important in these times to write something that highlighted the absurdity of all kinds of borders and the power people can have to cross them.
Leanna’s bravery is rooted in tenderness as much as defiance. How did you develop her moral center?
I read a lot of philosophy books! I do a lot of work personally on being the morally strongest person I can be, and a lot of that work has been through a study – both academic and independent – of philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. All those studies very directly influence my characters’ behaviors. That balance of tenderness and defiance you mention is particularly missing in the world right now. People tend to lean too far toward one or the other, both to their own detriment and to that of those around them. I know that living up to our own moral codes can be hard work, and I wanted Leanna to embody that constant effort to do the right thing, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted to explore the question of whether something with a wicked history can one day bring larger goodness. Humanity has done plenty to earn the name wicked. After billions of years of natural harmony, we come along and literally start destroying the earth, not to mention the atrocities we’ve done and continue to inflict on each other. But, through her story, Leanna learns that for something (or someone) to be good, someone else first has to believe they can be so. Can we do that for each other? Can we believe in humanity’s ability to bring about large-scale long-term goodness? If we can start with believing that, then I think we’d really have a chance at proving ourselves right.
How did you approach writing the bond between Leanna and Kennedy, especially within the larger political conflict?
It was vital to me that they brought each other joy. Because they grow up together, there’s a childlike playfulness they share that sustains them even when things get complicated. The very things we’re taught to fret over as adults can look very simple to children, and most often that simplicity is more truthful than any fretted over conclusion. When they’re older, both Leanna and Kennedy become an anchor for the other, and when one starts to fret, losing faith in her own goodness, the other believes in that goodness twice as hard. This relationship more than any other is what teaches Leanna the power of believing in someone. If Kennedy hadn’t done that for her, she might have had a very different path.
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In this long lost legend from the ancient World Within The Woods, a found family unites across impossible borders. Two servants from warring nations and a pair of fairy warriors from the Infinite Wood come together in a hidden cave to raise two little girls, Leanna and Kennedy, whose very existence poses a threat to the structures of their societies.
Discovery and danger go hand in hand, but the children can’t stay in the cave forever. When they emerge, they find themselves in a world riddled with myth, prejudice, and dangerous power. More, they discover it’s up to them to try and put the world right – even if it means losing everything.
The debut of emerging non-profit publisher For Elenvia Publications.
For Elenvia: Publications and Productions is an interdisciplinary arts organization focused on using theatre and literature to collectively imagine a better world and consider how we might make it real. It’s mission: “With a focus on theatre and literature, we use the arts to unite people under a common philosophy of limitless respect, empathy, and curiosity. We believe in the possibility of a better world and work towards its creation through artistic education and active community organizing.”
The Legend of Leanna Page
In The Legend of Leanna Page, Volume One, author Cedar Flyte opens a deliberately old-fashioned fantasy saga in the World Within the Woods, where Masor, Pavoline, and the fairy nation of Alquoria are knotted together by grief, political suspicion, inherited hatred, and dangerous magic. At the center is Leanna Page, a servant’s daughter with dream-born powers and a fierce bond with the fairy Kennedy; as rulers scheme, a drought spreads, and the Jewel of Nebulous becomes a weapon of power, Leanna moves from hidden child to moral force, challenging kings and kingdoms that have mistaken prejudice for wisdom.
I was taken by the book’s insistence that wonder should carry ethical weight. The fairies aren’t merely decorative wings in the trees, and the kingdoms are not simple chessboards of good and evil. Flyte gives the world a parchment-and-ivy texture: songs, epistles, maps, courtly titles, family grudges, and little ceremonial gestures accumulate until the setting feels less invented than unearthed. The prose asks the reader to slow down. Its archaic turns will not suit every taste, but I found that, once my ear adjusted, the language gave the story a pleasingly lantern-lit cadence.
What stayed with me more than the spectacle was Leanna’s particular kind of bravery. She isn’t brave because she is untouched by fear; she is brave because fear keeps arriving and she keeps answering it with tenderness, wit, or defiance. Her relationship with Kennedy gives the book its warmest pulse, and the political plot gains bite because the personal stakes are so intimate: fathers, mothers, servants, monarchs, and children all pay for the stories their societies choose to believe. The pacing can feel slow, but that slowness also lets the emotional and philosophical consequences settle instead of simply rushing toward the next marvel.
I would recommend this to readers of epic fantasy, YA fantasy, fairy lore, queer romantic fantasy, and coming-of-age adventure, especially those who enjoy immersive worldbuilding and prose with an antique shimmer. It may appeal to fans of Tamora Pierce’s moral clarity and courtly adventure, though its diction and legendary framing also bring to mind older Arthurian retellings. The Legend of Leanna Page is a lush, earnest, many-chambered beginning: a fantasy that believes peace is not naïve, but arduous, luminous work.
Pages: 342 | ASIN: B0G26ZL86L
Keeping Secrets
The Wizard’s Apprentice follows a sixteen-year-old prince training in magic who is haunted by visions of his kingdom burning, and must decide whether he is fated to destroy it or destined to save it. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The Children of Colonodona is at its core a sequel series to The Sitnalta Series. A lot has happened to Lucas’ parents, and in many ways, he is hampered by this notion that one day, he will have some massive shoes to fill. The adults around him, his mother, father, and his mentor Kralc, all have such high hopes for him. That’s a lot of pressure for a kid to deal with and to live up to. In truth, we as parents often set our own kids up for failure a lot of the time by expecting them to turn out a certain way. How can anyone find their own path or come into their own with that much pressure put upon them? Lucas is a way to answer that question. Will he rise to the occasion, or will he quite literally crash and burn?
How did you shape Lucas as a believable teenage lead, and what makes him different from typical fantasy heroes?
Lucas is full of flaws, but none of those flaws stop him from wanting to be good, to do good. For me, that was the starting point with him. I think of my own boys and what they love, and how much they love their family, their friends, and their hobbies. Teenage boys are so full of potential, energy, and passion. But sometimes (often, if you’ll ask their sister), teenagers are also frustrating and frustrated. They want to grow up so fast, and they also want to stay children. It’s a bit of a paradox. They are goofy and silly, and angry and in a rush to do so many things. That is Lucas. He is a boy who wants to be looked at with the respect due to someone many decades his senior. At the same time, add in magic powers.
What makes him different is that he is human first, wizard last. I wrote him primarily as a son and as a brother. Contrary to so many books out there, the parents and family are all very much in the picture from the first page to the last. There is no escaping them, and they are all essential to the story as opposed to where Lucas escapes to after his story is over.
What themes did you know you wanted to explore from the start?
I wanted to explore the ideas of love, both familial and romantic, grief, and the idea that keeping secrets can be what hurts those you love. Honesty is always key. It’s the secrets that have the potential to be really dangerous. This is a family haunted by grief and secrets. Both Lucas and his sister Audrina are coming of age in a home filled with ghosts, and this is what they must navigate to figure out who they’re growing into.
What will your next novel be about, and what will the whole series encompass?
The next novel in the series is called The Island of Mystics, and we will see a lot more of what lies beyond the border of their kingdom. Without giving too much away, both Lucas and Audrina are dealing with the fallout of what happens in The Wizard’s Apprentice, and Lucas in particular craves an escape. Where this escape takes him is far beyond where he ever imagined.
The rest of the series investigates Audrina’s choices in love and Lucas coming into his own. We also meet a couple of new characters that I dearly love writing, and I can’t wait for you to meet them!
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When a young woman enters the lives of the royal family begging for help, she quickly becomes Prince Lucas’ unexpected confidant. Meanwhile, Princess Audrina gravitates towards her in ways that place her in a difficult situation for an heir to a throne. As an investigation unfolds for the truth, the prince’s nightmares become increasingly horrifying, the princess’ feelings grow more complicated, and the newcomer’s intentions are cast into doubt. The royal family must discover the stranger’s secrets before hearts are broken and events reveal whether or not Prince Lucas’ dreams are leading to a deadly future in The Wizard’s Apprentice.
Actually Invisible
Actually Invisible is a contemporary literary novel that follows Josie Rein-Thompson, a gay high school English teacher trying to hold together grief, marriage, motherhood, fertility struggles, and a sudden wave of public scrutiny after a student’s homophobic comment turns her private life into a community issue. The book moves between Josie’s present-day life in 2019 and earlier moments from her youth, letting us see how her bond with her late father, her first experiences of desire, and her long habit of making herself smaller all feed into the woman she has become. By the end, the story brings those threads together in a way that feels earned, with Josie finding both public affirmation and a deeply personal bit of hope.
Author Elisa Greb does not try to make Josie neat or polished all the time, and I appreciated that. She is funny, sharp, insecure, loving, petty, generous, exhausted, and very believable. The voice has that intimate quality where it feels like someone is telling you the truth before they have had time to clean it up. I liked that a lot. The book is at its best when it trusts ordinary moments to carry emotional weight: a classroom exchange, a fertility appointment, a memory in a car, a glance across a room. Even when the novel gets heavy, it keeps its feet on the ground.
I also admired the author’s structural choices. The back-and-forth timeline could have felt busy, but here it works because the past is not just background. It keeps answering the present. Josie’s father is not treated like a sentimental device. He feels like a living force in the book, especially through the robin motif, which could have been too much in another novel but works here because it grows naturally out of memory, grief, and repetition. The school storyline is handled with more nuance than I expected. The novel is clearly angry about prejudice, but it is more interested in the daily wear of being made visible on other people’s terms, and in the quiet bravery it takes to stop apologizing for existing. That landed hard for me.
I would recommend Actually Invisible most to readers who like character-driven fiction, queer fiction, and contemporary literary novels that care more about emotional truth than flashy plot. It will especially speak to people drawn to stories about teachers, family grief, chosen family, and the strange mix of tenderness and fury involved in being seen clearly at last. I think readers who want a reflective, intimate novel with a steady heart will get the most from it. It is not trying to dazzle. It is trying to be honest. And for me, that honesty is exactly what gives it its power.
Pages: 298 | ASIN : B0CW1M5M7W
The Prince’s Dress Dilemma
The Prince’s Dress Dilemma, by Sara Madden, follows young Prince Eric, a kid who seems to have it all. He is growing up in a palace with his twin sister, Erica, and their dog, Arthus. His days are full of games and little adventures, and every night he pulls on his favorite nightgown and drifts off to sleep completely content.
One morning, though, everything feels different. Eric wakes up to discover he’s had a growth spurt. Overnight, he’s shot up so much that none of his clothes fit, especially not anything fancy enough for the upcoming royal ball. He’s worried, but his parents aren’t. The king and queen quickly come up with a plan: they’ll send him to the dressmaker to have a royal ballgown made just for him. Once his new outfit is finished, Eric heads to the ball ready to enjoy himself, confident that he looks exactly the way he wants to look.
The Prince’s Dress Dilemma, by Sara Madden, is a short children’s book that feels perfect for young kids, especially as a bedtime read or a cozy rainy-day story. The plot is simple, the language is accessible, and the pictures help carry young listeners through the story without losing their attention.
It’s hard to talk about this book without mentioning the obvious: Eric wears nightgowns to bed and prefers dresses during the day. The book is welcoming to the LGBTQIA+ community, even though those terms never appear in the book, and it tells a supportive story for anyone who may find themselves in Eric’s shoes. Eric’s family accepts his clothing choices without fuss, and that quiet, steady support turns the story into one about exploring and celebrating gender expression that doesn’t always fit traditional expectations. The warm and charming artwork reinforces this, especially scenes from the ball that show same-sex couples dancing together.
Parents who want their children to grow up seeing and valuing diversity are likely to embrace The Prince’s Dress Dilemma. The story itself is gentle and good-natured. It encourages kids to feel comfortable in their own bodies and their own choices. That’s a message many parents can stand behind. And for the children who read this book, there’s a clear and valuable lesson: acceptance and kindness toward people who are different from you are not just important, they’re normal, and they’re good.
Pages: 43 | ASIN : B0C5P1TN2H
