Rosewater Press

Well shit I did this again. I liked doing the Halloween flashfic so much I whipped up another for Christmas! I apologize for the lack of context with which these have been posted; a proper Pilot Episode will hopefully materialize before long. In the meantime, as it stands, I am happy with the introduction of Todd here. He's based on a real coworker of mine, also named Todd. One of those guys I loved talking to but never got too close with, and I pray every night he never holds any real power over anyone - that fear is manifest here. I think a few of my anxieties crop up in this one. Early December was among the snowiest in recent memory, with no days significantly above freezing until the week of Christmas. The ice sculptures in Neenah, which I see with my parents every year (I don't know for sure if Wisconsin Dells has an equivalent IRL, excuse me if that's inaccurate) stayed standing and in good shape for a couple weeks. A few feet of snow accumulated and even after a sig...

 In another life I wrote a series of over-the-top comedic short stories - imagine a low-brow cartoon novelized by a kid trying to be Douglas Adams - in which Satan and several other Hell-spawned folk traveled an increasingly strange and hostile multiverse together. It's remained high in my heart and is regarded fondly by many friends, but I could never hope to recapture its bottled lightning.          As such I've spent a good portion of my free time brainstorming a less surreal reboot, something more in-line with where my creative juices have settled in adulthood. Since its comedy leaned a little visual for prose, my first thought was, "okay, how could I make this thing visually?" My idea was a sitcom in which the well of human belief has run dry, forcing the divine from their homes and bringing them to Earth as regular people. A sort of reverse-isekai that left Satan a balding middle-aged man stuck working at a Mystery Shack-ish tourist trap in Wisconsin ...

songs used Don Rader - Aschiya The Vaqueros - Desert Wind Jazz Q Praha - Kartago 佐藤允彦 - グラマ・グラス https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/06/08/just-how-many-democrats-did-al-packer-eat-gwu-professor-digs-into-the-legend/5915d60c-bc0f-4aa4-832d-9601822f1e38/   https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/15/us/bones-back-beastly-tale-of-old-west.html   https://web.archive.org/web/20170215085522/https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/APacker%20Confession.pdf https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/ballad-alferd-packer.html https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/western-history/alferd-packer-truth-out-there-or-right-here https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/western-history/new-alferd-packer-papers https://web.archive.org/web/20130117085556/https://www.museumofwesternco.com/education/history-of-the-grand-valley/alferd-packer/ https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alferd-packer https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/los-pinos-indian-agency https://www.jstor...

  A few years back, I said I’d like to go back and review all the old Faction Paradox material on this blog eventually. It made more sense back then, when the series appeared to be another victim of the pandemic. A return to somewhat consistent annual releases starting with the first Boulevard book has given me less time to think about the past. Then again, I read more than one book a year. And, y’know, it’s not like these reviews are particularly broad or deep. They're easy to write. So I had plans this summer to delve back into the Mad Norwegian Golden Age alongside a review of this book.           Then Obverse Books decided that Summer 2025 was gonna be the most productive point in the company’s entire history. Like, holy crap. The Paradise Towers novel, a reprint of Of the City of the Saved , and an EDA-themed charity anthology? It’s been a big summer for Wilderness-adjacent spinoffs outside of the Obverse corner, too - Jimbo’s Mars book finally ca...