Welcome to the longest FAQ on the planet. Now with a soupçon of snark.
Edit: I’ve added the info about my stroke, and then the regular FAQ resumes after that. CW below for vomit, near-death, hospitals, needles, open sores, bacterial infections, the works.
Q.) Where. Did you. GO.
A.) I had a stroke.
Q.) a what
A.) A stroke.
Q.) a WHAT
A.) Stroke. Complete brain blow-out. Full-on Fettermaned. Took a 7-hour brain surgery to save my life.
Q.) Bro. EXPLAIN.
A.) Oh jaheebus, where do I even start? I had spooled out some of this on social media before I got called away and never came back to finish because crossposting it was laboriously exhausting, but let’s try starting again from scratch here.
So this kind of started in March of 2025. I fell. And you have my permission to laugh here – I fell off the damn toilet. Leaned over to pick up a toilet roll that had fallen on the floor, and next thing I know the world’s topsy-turvy and I’m lying semi-upside down inside my shower stall with my right arm pinned under me in a way that made it completely numb and useless. It took me like 10 minutes of struggling to be able to pull myself up, as there was nothing I could grab onto with my functioning left arm.
I still don’t know why I fainted, but I suspect low blood sugar. I was okay-ish at first after that; I had a few days where my right arm was acting possessed and completely out of control, smacking myself any time I tried to use it, but it slowly worked out. Problem was something new started: edema in my left calf, which moved up to my left thigh, which moved up to my stomach and side. Plus pain moving that seemed to be sciatica and made it almost impossible to get around to take care of myself, go upstairs to do the laundry, take care of the cats. Then in April 2025 my periods stopped – I wasn’t fond of them anyway as a trans man, but I’d been having them pretty regularly since having to stop testosterone for medical reasons over a decade before, so their abrupt cessation was worrisome since I’m just too young for full menopause.
Still, I didn’t go to the doctor. I didn’t have insurance and free clinics here are either only open at a certain time of the year or have a ludicrously long sliding scale waitlist. I did see a remote doctor using ‘zon Health, and they recommended antibiotics; I tried it, it didn’t get better, but I kept waiting and hoping.
I’m fuzzy on dates around this, honestly, but I’m told July 28th is the anniversary of me surviving my stroke, so that means on the night of the 27th is when things started really going down. My house sandal rubbed a weird open sore onto my left big toe, like huge, and it was odd how easily it tore through the skin. I started throwing up uncontrollably, but I couldn’t get up to the bathroom so I was basically just defiling this one blanket while my cats clung to me and nuzzled to comfort me. Eventually there was nothing left but mucus, air, and froth, but I kept throwing up. Finally it exhausted me so much I passed out.
I woke up on the 28th uncoordinated and unable to make my legs work in cooperation with the rest of my body. I couldn’t even sit up. It just immediately pinged for me that I must have had a stroke or something similar, so 911 gets called. EMTs show up, try to ask me questions, but I’m so brain-blasted that when I try to answer their questions with the sensible words in my brain, I just scream “Japanese! Japanese!” over and over again…at the Korean EMT. I’m still so embarrassed and wish I could apologize to him for the kind-of-sideways-racism.
So I got wheeled out. In the ambulance the spell passed enough that I could communicate more clearly with the EMTs (unfortunately none of them were the one I needed to apologize to). They took me to the hospital, I ended up in a room talking to a doctor, I said godawful things to the phlebotomist when he stuck that needle in my hand (I’m a little phobic, okay), and then…
Nothing. I woke up a month later like “WTF happened to me?” with my whole damn life changed.
I do remember some things…sort of. A lot of this is stuff I was told. But basically I had to have a seven-hour brain surgery to clear up the clot in my brain (which is likely what caused the persistent edema, before the clot traveled upward from my leg and started doing damage everywhere). I still have the huge scars on the back of my neck from the incision.
But I wasn’t out of the woods after addressing the stroke; I apparently had a severe bacterial infection of unknown origin that had been progressing for a long time, which is why when I thought I was just burned out to the point a break wasn’t helping…actually, no. I was sick. Very sick. Sick enough that I was dying by inches and didn’t even know it.
So they were trying to treat the infection. It wasn’t working. I was still dying. My neighbor/landlord had my power of attorney because I was estranged from my family; while I lay there dying, she refused it/gave it up because she didn’t want the responsibility. Meantime I was on so many goddamn drugs I was having every damn kind of hallucination; I’ve been told I should turn this stuff into a book, it was so loopy. Two constants were that no matter how the hallucinations changed, I was convinced people were trying to kill me and this was a fake hospital; and, I wanted my mum and my sister, as even estranged my brain said they wouldn’t put up with this foolishness that seemed to have also infected my neighbor, and they would save me.
Well…I guess I said it out loud. And I don’t know how they found my mum’s contact info, but they called her. She dropped everything and came up from Louisiana; one of my sisters also came from San Francisco, while my sister in Portugal has been footing the bill for their travel and lodgings for a year now without question. My neighbor/landlord tried to keep them from seeing me, basically deciding since I’d said we had bad history they must not be allowed, even if they were my next of kin and she’d refused any responsibility.
They fought through hell to be able to see me anyway.
They wrangled all the paperwork to get me on Medicaid to cover the seven-figure costs of my treatment. And then they took on 12-hour shifts where one would stay with me during the day, one would stay at night, but while I was dying…I was never alone, even when I was apparently such a menace (reminder: I do not remember any of this) that I flung my mother across the room when she tried to stop me from grabbing my tubes, and I spat bloody mucus into my hand and then flung the mucus at my sister.
It was bad, though. Like, I was in hospice and doctors had my mum picking out a cemetery and funeral home. There were two nights where they said I wouldn’t last until morning.
I pulled through anyway.
Do not fucking ask me how.
I just tell people you don’t underestimate the stubbornness of a Sanders.
So I woke up. I lived. They were there. And I know – I know very well we all know that I didn’t see them for 23 years for a reason. But when things came down to it, they were there for me in the most crucial moment possible, and they’ve been good to me. I won’t get into all the details because it’s personal, but basically we all decided we’re too old, it’s been too long, life is short, and we’d rather have a relationship with who the other person is now than stay mad at who the person was then. I haven’t forgotten some of the trauma I still carry with me from back then.
But I have a blood family again.
In fact, as I was writing this, my mum was in town from Louisiana, visiting for a week to go with me for a major appointment + do my laundry, because if you give your laundry to the laundry room here you will never get it back and I’m still missing over $100 in nice new shirts + one of my durags.
Anyway.
So. I survived the stroke. I woke up in the hospital. Amazingly, the stroke doesn’t seem to have damaged me cognitively very much; the only things are that when speaking aloud sometimes I trip over my words and have to start over, plus the languages I knew besides English are no longer in easy reach and I’m keeping myself occupied with refresher lessons. I did have some right-side droop and weakness for a bit (the stroke affected the left side of my brain, so the right side of my body), but the droop is resolved. There’s a huge scar on my left arm that people keep mistaking for a bruise from where the bacterial infection started blooming on my skin, but all it’s left behind is a scar so that’s a definite victory. But I still do have a whole other laundry list of things wrong with me:
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Diabetic neuropathy in my feet and ankles
- Retinopathy in my eyes, which will lead to me going fucking blind if not treated
- The beginnings of cataracts
- Congestive heart failure
- A congenital hole in my heart that should have closed in childhood but didn’t, so it’s just been there my whole damn life and explains why when I was on T it was causing scary heart palpitations
- Vocal cords paralyzed by the stroke, meaning I couldn’t eat, breathe, or talk and have a feeding tube in my goddamn stomach
- Balance turned completely upside down to the point where I couldn’t even sit up without getting dizzy and falling over
- Legs atrophied down to sticks not from the stroke, but because during early recovery I had to be sedated to stop me from wilding out on drugs, pulling my tubes out, and starting fistfights with RNs; being motionless in bed for a month caused my legs to waste down to nothing
- Permanently on blood thinners now to prevent the possibility of another stroke, which means I bruise like a motherfucker and I’m constantly sporting purple marks
- Still had that fucking foot sore! Only now it was officially my very first (and so far, only) diabetic ulcer.
You know what, though? I don’t have fucking lupus. I had poor diagnoses and testing from not having money, and all of the combined conditions I had before the stroke led to doctors saying “Eh, guess it’s lupus” and treating me for that. Bleh. Bleh. Dr. House would like a word.
There’s so much more. So much more. But this has gotten long enough, so I’ll try to keep it short; maybe one day I’ll tell you about the CNA who got fired for being an emotional predator and saying the N-word to me, or the PRN CNA who no longer gets called here for pick-up shifts because he decided he needed to tell me about tricking his wife into getting pregnant by telling her he wouldn’t “spill inside” only to do it anyway. Or about when my first feeding tube had mold in it and the nurse manager ignored me, saying it wasn’t mold, only for me to have a doctor see it, freak out, and fast-track replacing the feeding tube that had mold growing with direct access to my open stomach.
BUT ANYWAY.
So I was in the hospital for a little while longer, then transferred to this rehab center I hope I never go back to again. I was barely there for like two weeks but it basically felt like a place to dump people who were mentally off-kilter or infirm so others wouldn’t have to deal with them. Half the staff were as off-kilter as the residents, and to this day I’m not sure if one of the RNs was really an RN or a resident faking it, she was that weird. It smelled like dook. Bad. Physical therapy was just someone coming in twice a week, talking to me for five minutes, then giving me a paper with some exercises and saying “Do this.” And my foot ulcer got way worse there, deepening into a super bad infection, and I kept telling them it was bad for a week and they were just not listening, all “just put more iodine on it and it’ll be fine.”
It was very not fine. I finally got a doctor to check it. She took one look, called in a second doctor for a consult, and shipped me right back to the hospital.
So I was in the intensive, intensive ICU as this infection was not playing and I got into touch-and-go territory for a while again. While I was in there, staff at the rehab center tried to steal my laptop, including trying to break into it and reformat it. -_- The social worker there got all my shite and locked it up until my family could get it for me. In the ICU, it was discovered my stomach was also full of blood, and it took two weeks of stuff I don’t want to mention to get it all out of my stomach to determine the source (my feeding tube had come loose).
But they got that infection under control, and sent me out again. This time to a different, much better rehab center; the one I’m in now. Don’t get me wrong, I have my issues beyond the two CNAs and the shitty nurse manager (who is currently officially barred from my room or from even speaking to me) mentioned above, but it’s worlds apart and I’m keeping my mouth shut because there are people here I’d still like to have a good relationship with after I leave.
And I am leaving. The goal is October 2026. I’ve made a ton of progress; I can breathe, talk, and eat again, and I just now passed my big swallow study evaluation so they’re starting to give me my pills orally instead of flushed through my feeding tube, and even bringing me meals (we won’t talk about the quality of the food here, but my mum and I ordered pizza to celebrate and it was divine). They’re going to leave the tube in for a couple of weeks for safety reasons while they observe me as I transition to meals, and then we’ll schedule surgery to get it removed. My voice is sometimes a little weak and not as deep as it used to be, but considering I could barely wheeze-whisper before, the fact that I’m audible at all is pretty good.
I’m currently getting injections in my eyes to bring down the swelling from the retinopathy, and will eventually get laser once they’re ready; that will stop the vision degradation. In the meantime I’m trying to make the switch from contact lenses to eyeglasses, as the stroke blew my vision out so bad that I’m having to wear the strongest lenses my contact lens manufacturer makes paired with +2.75 reading glasses, and it’s still not enough. Problem is the doctor who made my new prescription glasses is just not responding to me needing revisions, as these things are okay but the distance and depth perception are off enough that if I tried to walk in these, I’d be on my butt in seconds.
The ulcer on my foot is fully healed; it took months, partially because it was so deep the tendon was showing; partially because I had problems with hypergranulation preventing it from closing over; partially because I had another blood clot in the bend of my knee preventing blood flow from reaching it adequately, but once doctors cleared that out with an angio the healing went much faster.
I’m not walking independently yet, but I’m close; I’ve rebuilt a lot of muscle in my legs, but I feel like a baby learning how to walk for the first time, especially with having to train my body to have balance and coordination again. I have physical therapy six days a week, and I’ve progressed to using the parallel bars and just barely holding on to them for balance, plus walking pretty decent distances using a walker. The goal is to get myself on a snazzy, stylish cane so I can walk around by myself. I get stronger every day, so fingers crossed.
There are other little things, like losing the phone number I had for over 20 years due to non-payment while I was on my little sojourn from conscious reality and then refusing to pay over $700 to get it turned back on, so I now I have a new phone and number. But the big thing is I survived, I’m recovering, and I’m striving to get back to normal life as soon as I can – with a lot of help, support, and love from the people around me. Next step is an assisted living facility for a couple of years, just until we’re sure I’m safe to live on my own and until I’m 100% used to administering this giant raft of meds I have to take daily by myself.
Once I’m there, the hope is that I’ll have peace and quiet to write regularly again, as right now it’s near impossible as even if I have a private room, people come in here no less than 14 times a day, often more, at all times of the day and night. I barely get any sleep and concentrating is…well…it’s a good thing they restarted my ADHD meds or I’d be screaming.
Q.) So Criminal Intentions is coming back?
A.) Absofuckinglutely. I miss my goddamn boys like mad and I’ve even been teasing a friend with contextless not-quite-spoilers about what happens to Seong-Jae in CI S3E4. Unfortunately it’s going to be late 2027, likely; I’ve been working on client books and doing what I call “practice writing” to not lose the habit while in this godforsaken place, plus even started on a few plotbunnies, but for CI I need a space of my own and calm so I can reread the entire damn series again, rewrite CI S3E4 for the third time (hoping this time it doesn’t suck), and then carry on to finish the series.
Plus…bro. I still want to write 1,000 novels, novellas, and short stories before I die. That plan is still on the front burner.
We’re gonna finish this series.
I’m also going to get back to publishing my Ko-Fi serials, so thank you to everyone who’s still subscribed there and has been patient. I will also get back to posting art and fulfilling art commissions; I just have to wait until my vision has been addressed before I can do that.
And I absolutely have not forgotten the international giveaway, even if it’s been years. I’m going to have to order more books because my sister is making me throw away everything that was in my apartment due to possible contamination, but I still have all the emails and addresses, and I will get to that as soon as I can.
Q.) What happened when you originally had CI S3E4 up for preorder, and then it disappeared?
A.) It got stuck in a “technical glitch” and wouldn’t publish. Nothing would publish in my account for a good six months, whether it was new books or updates. I can’t say more for fear of getting slapped by the ‘zon, but I suspect my account was under some kind of review, likely because I’m so prolific. It’s unfrozen now. But back then I realized while I was trying to sort this how much the original S3E4 sucked, even if I didn’t realize it was because I was extremely damned sick and it was reflecting in the quality of my work.
Q.) Your newsletter signup doesn’t work! I want the free stories!
A.) Yyyyyyeah. My newsletter host costs $50 a month even though I almost never send newsletters, just because of the size of my subscriber list – and I just haven’t had the money while I was in here, so they disabled my forms (I’ve been too nervous to log in and see if they deleted my whole account, all subscribers bye-bye). But. You can still email me and I’ll give you both the VIP password and as a backup, a link to a Dropbox share with everything from the VIP section – no signup needed, all things considered.
Q.) I emailed you in 2025/2026 and never got a response. 🙁
A.) I’m so sorry. After the stroke I wasn’t really up to communications at first, but I did try to answer everyone eventually – and in the last few months I’ve been trying to answer everyone within a couple of weeks. Two problems with that: One, my web host forced everyone from an internal email platform to Microsoft Exchange, and that change in platform IP has caused a TON of email platforms to start rejecting my blackmagic@blackmagicblues.com email address. Two, when I switched to my thisblackmagic@gmail.com address to reply, it started going to people’s spam folders. So my reply to you is likely either in spam or has been deleted by your email platform for being in spam too long. If it’s not in there, email me again; I’ll reply again, and this time pretty please check your spam folders and you should find it. You can use either email address to contact me, but I’ll use my gmail to reply.
Q.) Bruh. WHERE ARE YOUR CATS?!
A.) Mab and Mercutio are with my neighbor/landlord – the #1 reason she is not top of my shitelist right now. She feeds them and does their litter every day, plus spends time playing with them; they’re actually still in my old apartment, and I’m still paying rent on it as best I can out of my royalties (which, thank y’all for still buying and reading my books, as you’re keeping my babies housed and fed). So at least she’s not throwing my stuff or cats out, and she brings me my mail every once in a while, while I send her money once a month. I miss my cats so much it’s physically painful; the little pics and videos she sends help a bit, but I’m frothing at the mouth to have them back. As soon as I’m out of here they’re going to the vet to get updated on their shots so I have the paperwork to move them in with me at the assisted living facility, and then I’m never letting them out of my sight again.
(Old/original FAQ starts below here.)
Q.) …why are you multiple people?
A.) Genre differentiation – so you know what you’re getting by the name on the cover. Xen is for SFF and horror; Cole is for contemporary romance and erotica.
Q.) So why did you change your screen names and domain?
A.) Universal platform. Felt weird having everything under Cole while building an increasing presence as Xen. Needed something more broadly applicable for a single brand.
Q.) So is Xen your real name?
A.) No, but it’s pretty close. It’s a variant of an old university nickname.
Q.) Then what should I call you?
A.) I’ll answer to either Xen or Cole, but most just call me X. It’s simpler. And I like it better because it’s like…X, intersection, crossroads. It’s where my multiple marginalizations and facets of myself meet.
Q.) Why are comments on your blog closed?
A.) Because people were sending me death threats and telling me to kill myself over the Riptide thing, then acting like they won some kind of bizarre argument when I wouldn’t let their comments through moderation, claiming I was “silencing” them.
The blog I maintain on a site I pay to register and host is not a democracy, and if I don’t want to allow comments that are literally demanding a QTPOC’s death, then I don’t have to. Sorry. Get your rocks off elsewhere.
Q.) So back to your books. Will [X book] be available in print?
A.) If it’s any of my self-published work, yes. I don’t always release print editions at the same time as e-book, but print usually goes live within a few months of digital release. If it’s a publisher, that’s at the publisher’s discretion, but so far both my publisher books are available in print. Just…I’m tired, overworked, very slow right now, so paperbacks are massively delayed, but they’re coming.
Q.) Are all your books set in the same universe?
A.) With the exception of From the Ashes/the Fires of Redemption series, yes.
Q.) …wait what you’re telling me stuff like Criminal Intentions and Shatterproof are set in the same universe
A.) Yep. Just because those in the contemporary/real-world stories aren’t aware of the existence of the supernatural doesn’t mean it’s not there in the backdrop of their lives, out of sight and out of mind.
Q.) Why not From the Ashes, then?
A.) Because the mutants in the Fires of Redemption series are in the open and well-known. If there were mutants on TV threatening Congress in Malcolm and Seong-Jae’s world, I think they’d notice it — and they’d probably be working a lot more aberrant-related cases. So that one universe is separate. But the others are interconnected in small ways — like the fact that Drake Anderson is both Ion Blackwell’s agent in A Second Chance at Paris and Grey Jean-Marcelin’s agent in Shatterproof, and in The Found Vin Manion has some of Grey’s art on his walls.
Q.) I don’t get the Crow City prequel novellas. There’s no romance, there’s not even sex, and I’m supposed to read them…after the books they’re prequels for?
A.) The prequel novellas are optional side stories, and not really standalones; they’re hero novellas, companions to their hero(ine) novels. THE FALLEN is companion to THE LOST; THE SAVED is companion to THE FOUND. (Reading order list is here.) In the main line novels we stay in the heroine’s POV, and there are some things about the hero that remain a mystery, both for the tension of it and to avoid infodumping backstory that it’s intimated their opposite learns off-page. That backstory instead is told in a more active way in the side novellas, while weaving them along the path that leads them to the person they’ll fall in love with. That’s why it’s more fun to read them after – to enjoy the mystery of the hero during the main novel, then unravel his secrets and catch those little teasers pointing him toward his love interest in the novella.
Q.) Then why is AUTUMN a side story even though it’s a full-length novel?
A.) It was never planned to be a part of the series, and was written on a whim in response to overwhelming reader interest. Also, it breaks away from the formula of the other books, and in a lot of ways it’s just a continuation of THE FOUND; on Twitter I described it as fanfic of THE FOUND where everyone’s favorite OTP becomes canon, and that’s not far off. But it also doesn’t follow the prologue + flashbacks formula of the other main line novels; it’s dual POV instead of single POV; it doesn’t have a companion hero novella; and, it’s sweetly angsty, light, and hopeful instead of a sunken pit of grimdark misery.
Q.) I’ve seen hints and rumors of a spinoff series from Crow City, about Wally and his circus. Is that true?
A.) Yep. The series will be called Caravan of the Macabre, and will be set in the 90s; while Walford Gallifrey will be a major character in the story, it’ll be mostly centered on the people in and around his circus, and their relationships. It will probably be very, very queer, and I’m hoping to start writing it in….[glitchy processing sound, endless spooling loop]
Q.) Why do you write such dark stories?
A.) Because I like reading dark stories? I like writing and reading light stories, too. Honestly, I like everything. And because I write what I like…yeah. Also, the darker stories are a bit therapeutic for me. I’ve been through some shite. I don’t exactly do well with normative life narratives, and it helps me to write and read stories with people who’ve dealt with things similar to my own struggles, especially if they fight their way toward the kind of happiness that works for them instead of some universal ideal of happiness. I love fantasy happy endings and read/write them when I want to feel light, but sometimes I need darker struggles toward happiness that make me feel understood.
Q.) I wrote a review of your book! Want to see?
A.) If you tag me in a review on social media, I’ll likely RT it, but to be honest…I probably won’t read it. I try not to read reviews, either positive or negative. It makes me really uncomfortable. Reviews are for other readers, and I just don’t feel comfortable hovering around when that’s your space and you don’t need to feel like authors are watching or policing or judging. If you reviewed my book, thank you so very much and I love you, but the best thing I can do out of gratitude is respect spaces for reviewers/readers and not go barging in.
Q.) I heard something different. I heard you were so mad about a 1-star review of His Cocky Valet that you started an entire campaign of harassment against the reviewer and their friends, and even sent other authors to harass them.
A.) …yeah. That never happened. I’m honestly still not 100% sure of everything because I was off in my own little world, oblivious, but apparently someone ignored the trigger warnings in HCV, got triggered, hated the book overall, and wrote a scathing review. Which, well..okay, whatever. I’m very sorry anything I wrote hurt them, but sometimes I just get low reviews. Everyone does. Wasn’t the first, won’t be the last. It happens and it’s part of the job. But apparently this one was so extreme it violated Goodreads’ terms of service, so by the time I even knew it existed, it had been deleted; I’ve never read it. But another author I’d never met did, made some comments on it in her own review, and got swarmed until she deleted her review. Again, I didn’t know until after it happened and I contacted her to find out why people were talking ish at/about me and what had gone down; I told her she can’t do that as an author to start with, but like…please leave me out of it. Despite me being oblivious, I was blamed anyway, because hey – some white woman does something of her own free will, of course it’s the BIPOC dude’s fault.
I made a pointed post on social media about just leaving negative reviewers alone and then tried to ignore it and move on with my life. But in the background this person and their friend circle were still stalking my every move and turning everything I said into a subtweet or conspiracy against them; they were also starting random shite with other authors and then when those authors pushed back, suddenly it was me orchestrating it and sending these people I’ve never met to attack them. Like, in their minds I apparently had this whole network of people dedicated to attacking them, and if they started messing with these strangers first (over things unrelated to me, btw, like how am I even linked to this) and the strangers were just retaliating to these unknown people descending on them out of nowhere? Still my fault. You’re reading that right. Fights they started with random strangers, things they initiated – my fault, somehow.
Anything I said, no matter how unrelated, was apparently cope because I supposedly couldn’t stand the ego blow of someone saying what a bad book HCV was. Everything I did in just getting on with my daily routine was just more proof that I was an evil, elitist person who didn’t deserve to publish books or even really have an ordinary life. I couldn’t even talk about the high temperature reading inside my apartment causing me to freeze ice blocks for my cats without that turning into a riot over me supposedly being a liar because they googled the temperature at SeaTac and, shockingly, it was different from what I said because I don’t…live inside SeaTac. For some reason even though I’ve never interacted with negative reviews or bothered anyone about them before, somehow this one was special enough to rouse this specter of wrath and get me to do all these underhanded…things, stuff, I don’t even know all of it at this point. I was apparently some kind of super-stealthy ninja. Their version of me was almost impressively devious. Mad skills and all. Like, if only I was that smart, I guess.
It escalated into them finding my deadname, which was public because of legal name change requirements, and assuming that meant I was a woman and needed to be outed, vs. realizing…oh, he’s trans, he’s just stealth. They impersonated my ex to DM and try to intimidate me (and then he got on his high horse about going to the FBI about the impersonation, like…bruh, there’s a reason we’re divorced); they broke into my locked Livejournal to try to find “evidence” I was a bad person and should be cancelled. I came out as trans publicly before they could launch their big “expose” because I was not going to let someone else tell my story. They immediately backpedaled and claimed I was crazy and making this stuff up to hurt and defame them despite me having proof in site visitor IP logs of their activity, and then began harassing anyone who knew me or spoke for me, including harassing one of my author friends out of the industry.
A whole mess of fighting and conspiracies started without my involvement at all – after getting my life pried into this way, I had just vanished from social media to try to breathe and collect myself. Some people who hated the reviewer and their friends tried to pull me into their shite against those people, then started screaming about me when I refused to get involved. I retreated into a ball of trauma and hypervigilance, eventually went to therapy, and then just sighed and tried to move on.
There’s more, there’s honestly a ton more, including using my legal real name in derogatory ways in their social media display handles + review-bombing my books claiming I was trying to take credit for these people’s takedown of a bad actor in M/M + getting the vapors over the tone a BIPOC man (me) dared to take in my post coming out about this, but I think we’ve belabored the point enough. You get the idea. Some people decided I needed to be their villain, and tried to script me into that role even though I was minding my own business and refused to play the part. I’ve been accused of a lot of nonsensical things that don’t even make sense. They made a lot of incorrect assumptions about me, my life, and my motivations/intentions based on tiny fragments of information, then ran with those assumptions as truth. There are things attributed to me that I didn’t do, had no involvement in, and often didn’t even have any awareness of until well after the fact.
Basically, it’s what happens when social media coincides with people having too much time on their hands. I’m by no means flawless and I can be a dick, but I’m not that kind of dick.
But this is why I barely log on social media anymore at all.
This was all before COVID hit, and I can only hope in the ensuing time they’ve been focused on keeping their meatspace lives in order and spending time with their families. Some things are more important than online drama, so I genuinely hope they made it through that gauntlet intact and okay.
But I still have never read the review that started it, or have any opinion on it.
Q.) BACK TO THE BOOKS. You said Drake from A SECOND CHANCE AT PARIS will get his own story. What about Ion’s other sister Scheherazade?
A.) Yep. A #2.5 F/F novella between Ophelia’s book and Drake’s book.
Q.) Is each book in the Bayou’s End series a standalone?
A.) Yes. Certain events follow a timeline from book to book and familiar characters return in each book, but they can each be read as a standalone HEA.
Q.) Why are Zero’s and Scheherazade’s stories considered #.5 stories instead of main line novels?
A.) Because they never take place in Bayou’s End at any time in the story, they happen outside the main timeline of events, and they’re on the shorter end of novels/longer end of novellas.
Q.) When is the next Bayou’s End book out?
A.) One day, not sure when. My M/F books are all really back burner right now, but I’d like to finish out the Crow City series and then come back to wrap up Bayou’s End eventually before I start too many new series.
Q.) what you just started like three new queer as fuck series in 2019
A.) shh we don’t talk about that
Q.) Is it true you hide Easter Eggs in your books?
A.) Kind of? Just silly little wink-nod things, plus in nearly every book I write I make some mention of one of my favorite obsessions. I haven’t done it as much lately, though, but I may start sneaking it in again.
Q.) What do I get if I find one of the Easter Eggs?
A.) Personal satisfaction? I don’t know, no one has yet. They really are small things, but I might toss a $10 gift card or something to whomever is first to find them.
Q.) What’s the timeline for your next book?
A.) I have no idea. I’m still in the rehab center recovering from my stroke, but after I get out and back to some kind of regularity, normalcy, and privacy, I at least want to get back to monthly-ish releases for Criminal Intentions. Everything else? Your guess is as good as mine. We’ll see what I’m capable of doing once I’m settled.
Q.) How do you write books so quickly?
A.) I don’t, not really. I type books quickly, but the actual process of development can take weeks to months. It’s very rare that I can come up with a story idea and within days have it blitzed out; usually when I try I end up writing myself into a corner because I haven’t thought it through enough, and having to start over again and again (like with Black Tattoo).
The only stories where I’ve ever gone successfully from concept to finished product in a matter of days were From the Ashes (which I blitzed in three days in response to a sub call, setting off a chain of events that changed my life forever — but I still wasn’t happy with it and ended up rewriting later) and His Cocky Valet (which still went off the rails from what I intended as a parody and into a thing all its own).
I can also write out episodes of Criminal Intentions in 3-4 days if I really focus (and have, frequently, in deadline-driven desperation), but those are easier because my world and characters are already established and I’m building on that foundation. I once wrote an entire 70K episode in a single night, then did my best imitation of a corpse for approximately a week after.
By the time I’m ready to commit a story to paper, I’ve pretty much worked out everything I need to make the framework of the story work, often kind of running on sub-processes in the back of my mind while I’m working on other stuff, letting it percolate and mature slowly. There’s still a sort of loose pantsing process when I sit down to actually write because the characters tend to govern their own interactions and how they bounce off each other, and sometimes things they do or say spark new ideas — but as long as I’ve taken the time beforehand to work out my characters, their motivations, and the plot drivers, I can usually roll with it.
And at that point, it’s organizing my thoughts into something structured and then just typing fast. Which I’m very good at after over 10 years of experience as a CPRW with an exploitative company that had me parsing large amounts of new data and producing volumes of content on very tight deadlines on a daily basis. I’m honestly happy to be able to reallocate that wordcount to my books.
Although I can’t always pull it off because of physical limitations with pain or fatigue, cognitive limitations with mental illness, or even just because of plain old writer’s block.
So while yes, I can write a book quickly once I really get rolling on it…it’s not easy, and there’s no trade-off that replaces the hard work that goes into it. My process is different from many other writers’, maybe, but no less lengthy or laborious. It’s taken me a while to even recognize this myself, because I never really analyzed how I work until recently; I just sat down and did the thing until I had a finished manuscript without really noticing my patterns or workflow.
Yes, I have a remarkable lack of self-awareness.
But anyway.
It’s the structure that’s different.
Not the effort.
Q.) Yeah, but I heard a rumor that you didn’t really write His Cocky Valet in a week. You repurposed some old Black Butler fanfic and lied about it to drive sales because you’re a shitty opportunist.
A.) …I’ve seen that rumor flying around and I’m not sure what people get out of it other than a hint of scandal makes things more interesting, I guess.
Nope. I wrote it from scratch in a week. You can’t tell? It’s the most loosely, wildly plotted thing I’ve ever done, and full of all kinds of world-building errors. *laughs* It’s not a tight book at all. It’s a fun book, one that relies sheerly on emotional evocation and a little dirty play, but it’s not a tight book and to me it’s pretty obvious I wrote it in a week with zero advance plotting, just following pure sleep-deprived impulse — impulse that turned it from a parody into a standalone thing all its own because I’m honestly bad at writing parody.
I also never actually expected it to sell when I just wrote it to put myself in the legal line of fire and make it harder for F.H. to pursue all cases of use of Cocky in a book title when so many of us (the romance writing community, that is) were seeking to proliferate the use and thwart that shitty trademark lawsuit by making it very expensive and nigh on impossible to universally enforce as trademark protection generally requires. I was pretty much as shocked as everyone else when the book took off the way it did. I also dared F.H. to come at me with a legal challenge, but…she never did.
Y’all seem to think I’m much smarter and more conniving than I actually am.
It was a silly idea, Twitter goaded me into following through with it, everyone had fun, the book served its purpose to further complicate F.H.’s trademark claims, and the book enjoyed an unexpected sales run because people were curious what could possibly come out of someone blitzing out a book in a week. That’s about the end of it.
And I was actually inspired by Noctis and Ignis from FFXV. Especially in the Brotherhood anime that shows the various characters’ pasts together, I love the way Ignis at once looks after Noctis with loving care and the deference shown to his prince/future king, and also gives him utter hell with zero fucks given for his station in that sardonically dry way he has.
Servant/master tropes are actually pretty common in Japanese media, and neither Black Butler nor FFXV were the first to use them; I just wanted the chance to play with them myself. But I also knew exactly what kind of story I was telling and what tropes I was playing with, so I intentionally threw several Black Butler references in there just to make fans of the manga/anime laugh. Most people picked up on it and were amused by it, but…well…some people gotta be messy.
As long as they’re entertaining themselves, I guess, but you can’t have it both ways — where it’s somehow both so shitty a book I obviously wrote it in a week, and at the same time something I had already had done and lying around waiting to be repurposed. Pick whichever theory keeps you entertained, but both can’t work.
Also, if it was Black Butler fanfic, that would make Ash a stand-in for Ciel vs. inspired by Noctis.
Ciel’s like…twelve.
Y’all trying to get me banned from Amazon?
Q.) Why’d you write His Cocky Valet as thinly-veiled DD/lb, then?
A.) Because I like size difference, I like (legal) age gap stories, and I wanted to try writing a dependency/care kink story, but DD/lb actually triggers me as a CSA survivor. It’s fine if you write DD/lb or like it; no shame here. YKINMK(ATOK). But actually getting into age regression with the lb part of it vs. just invoking a caretaker top with a highly dependent bottom is a line that’s hard for me to be comfortable crossing due to trauma triggers, so instead Ash and Brand flirt with the edges of it as adults without Ash actually taking on the lb role and the age stuff inherent.
Q.) wait I’m lost what are you talking about what is DD/lb isn’t lb short for limit break in Final Fantasy games
A.) Uh.
I think maybe Google needs to be your educator here.
I am not inducting you into that world.
Q.) I was looking for BDSM with His Cocky Valet and it didn’t deliver. 🙁
A.) Whomever told you HCV is BDSM lied to you? I know it’s been shelved that way a lot, but it’s just…not, and I’ve never billed it that way. It’s kinkfic, but it’s not BDSM. Brand is a top, but not a Dom; Ash is a bottom, but not a sub; they have a kink they share, but they aren’t in a formalized, negotiated D/s relationship and don’t follow formal BDSM tenets other than the necessary use of a safe word. They’re just two messy people finding their way around the equally messy edges of a relationship framed in a specific kink.
His Cocky Cellist, on the other hand, is BDSM. I honestly think it’s the only book I’ve ever written that I consider actual BDSM, vs. just flawed people messing around with kink fuckery.
Q.) So if Ash and Brand are based on Noctis and Ignis from FFXV, who are Vic and Amani in His Cocky Cellist based on?
A.) No one. They’re original characters – Amani is actually a very old original character I had created in my ancient, actually somewhat terribad webcomic and then revived and renamed for the story, though it’s mostly his vibe/aesthetic that’s the same (you can see what he used to look like in the comic in the Art section of this site, only with braids instead of loose hair) and not his personality. His Cocky Valet is the only one that had external inspirations in an existing character dynamic from something else.
Q.) Your new covers are amazing. Are you still designing your own covers?
A.) Mostly nope. I might be a good cover artist, but I’m not a great one, and I hired someone who can pull off that professional polish I was missing. Her name is Les, she’s brilliantly creative with a beautiful style, and you can find her here. I do a few of my own still now and then, though. You can usually find the cover artist name on the copyright page of individual books.
Q.) What happened to your Patreon?
A.) Read the full tea on that here.
Q.) What are your pronouns?
A.) He/him. Form of address is Mr./Sir/Hey bro wtf.
Q. I heard you use they/them and Mx.
A.) Not sure how that got started, but nope. I’d really like it if people stopped spreading that around.
Q.) But your bio says you’re gender non-conforming.
A.) It also says he/him pronouns right after that.
I’m trans. Male. As in, not conforming to the cis assignation I was given at birth and doing whatever I have to do to be happy in the body I have, but also not feeling as though I have to conform to toxic rigid standards of cis masculinity in order to be male when I feel that as trans men we have the chance to promote a better kind of masculinity rather than trying to prove ourselves by adhering to old harmful standards.
That was a long sentence.
And trying to enforce another gender identity on a binary trans person or using gender-neutral pronouns when you know a binary trans person’s stated pronouns is misgendering. Gender-neutral pronouns are amazing when you don’t want to misgender someone but don’t know their pronouns, or need to make a blanket statement just like the ones I’m making using they/them pronouns in this paragraph. If you do know their pronouns but choose to use they/them anyway, you’re saying you don’t respect who binary trans people are are and instead are going to enforce your perception of their gender on them. You can hurt people that way by triggering their dysphoria and gender-related anxieties.
Don’t.
You also widen the schism between nonbinary and binary trans people, when too frequently we’re used to bludgeon each other rather than supporting each other. Nonbinary people are amazing. Binary trans people are amazing. You can make space for both of us while respecting we have different needs re: how pronouns are handled.
Q.) Why were you in the closet as trans male and passing as cis male?
A.) Because my trans and two-spirit identity is very personal and private to me, and a deep part of myself I don’t like sharing with others in a public forum.
Also people are really shitty to trans folk and I get my fair share of micro and macro aggressions already, thanks. Honestly being out in the current political climate isn’t safe. As in, outing trans folk for whatever crapfuck reasons? Endangers our lives.
But, well, here I am.
Q.) C’mon. Are you really a guy?
A. ) Oh, for the love of – Yes. Jesus. Go read this. Then go hug a puppy.
Q.) Then how do you write from the female POV?
A.) …mostly by listening to the women around me and trying to empathize instead of dismissing, trivializing, objectifying, hypersexualizing, and stereotyping, which is pretty much a solid rule for any time you’re writing outside your lane, realm of experience, or sphere of privilege. Also while contextualizing childhood experiences when growing up with a gender designation that isn’t right is very hard and isn’t the same as growing up as cis female, I was still AFAB and had that role enforced on me for the first 18-20 years of my life. So it’s part empathy, and part experience.
Q.) You empathize with women? Are you gay?
A.) Unashamedly bisexual, actually (no, we aren’t mythical creatures). Which really has nothing to do with treating those who are female-identified as equal human beings that I can empathize with.
Q.) Why won’t you tell us your real name?
A.) Because it’s not important, and I like to have a little privacy despite the expectation of continuous, performative openness required of an author in the age of social media. That, and I tend to work with stuffy old guard corporate white guys, and I have zero interest in justifying what I do in my off hours to them.
Besides, it’s out there and not a secret. Not hard to find. It’s just not interesting, either. Still the same guy regardless of my name.
Q.) You disappear off social media a lot.
A.) Yep.
Q.) Why?
A.) Burnout. Plus if I have a lot to do social media is a tempting distraction and method of procrastination, and I need to stay away to maintain some level of discipline and focus. Wordcount before socializing. Plus, for a 2026 update, I’m currently in a rehab facility recovering from a stroke, so I don’t get online all that much.
I always come back.
Eventually.
Q.) Why don’t you ever answer FB PMs and Twitter DMs?
A.) Primary reason:
I’m not there.
I’m very sporadically on social media. Like I said, I get burned out really easily, but also?
I hate it there.
I’ve met some amazing people there, but for the most part it’s a toxic hell pit where in general the larger volume of decent, nice people get shouted down by bad faith actors — and it’s a miracle if I dip in more than five minutes any given week if I’m busy or burned out. I’m just not interested in the use of low-context channels for information distribution to create and inflate drama, plus I have a lot of trauma triggers associated with social media. I don’t want to be there. It upsets me. So I’ll show up, flail around for a while when it’s fun, brain vomit whatever’s in my hyper-processing skull…then hit 0 spoons and log off for very long periods.
Secondary reason: because I get too many messages and I can’t keep up. I often don’t know what to say, anyway; I’m not very good at responding to kind words even if I appreciate them, as it often feels like hubris to accept others’ praise or generosity, so I just end up making things awkward for both of us. Plus I have issues with ADHD and focus, and social media can suck me in until I’ve lost days of writing time and possibly weeks’ worth of focus and motivation. If I want to do this, this whole dream I’ve had of writing for a career…I have to make choices. And I have to set boundaries.
I’m getting better at accepting that I’m not evil for enforcing my boundaries, and it’s okay to say “It’s nothing personal, I’m sorry, but I can’t engage with everyone and maintain my mental health + work hours.”
Also like…25% of the time the DMs are sexually inappropriate, invasive, overly intimate, demanding, or just plain rude. I don’t like playing Russian roulette, really, so I’d rather not open them at all than risk one out of four might be a bullet.
So my DMs are closed; non-mutuals can’t DM me on Twitter, and I don’t read DMs from mutuals.
Sometimes people try to send me professional or business-related messages via FB PM or Twitter DM. Don’t. Just don’t do it. You don’t know if I’ll see that in a day or in a year, or ever at all. I don’t care if it’s a request for a blurb or an invitation to an anthology collaboration. Email me.
Q.) But you don’t answer emails, either. ;_;
A.) Not always, but I see them within a day. And if it’s something professional I’ll likely respond within a day or two to either accept, decline, request more information, or ask for more time to consider. Usually anything business-related will push me past whatever anxieties I’m wibbling with that day re: email, but if you’re using social media to contact me about something official that’s going to say a lot to me about how the endeavor is being conducted on a professional level overall. Plus for reals I will likely not see it or if I do, I’ll forget about it before I even get to a place where I can answer.
Q.) So why don’t you answer your other emails? Like fan mail?
A.) The same reason I don’t answer DMs and PMs. I just…can’t keep up. My social capacity is really low, and it’s far lower than it was when I first joined social media because my ability to cope with the inundation of attention has slowly been eroded away over the years to leave me a nervous wreck hanging on by a very thin tether. It only takes one more ounce of weight to make that tether snap, so if I have a choice not to pick up that ounce of weight…I try not to. And even positive social attention can, at times, involve the pressure of other people’s expectations, and I just…can’t. I get overwhelmed and then I hide and then I feel guilty for hiding when (most) people are being nice and then I just hide even more.
Even if it’s a personal email from a friend, I will usually fall off after a couple of exchanges. There are days when I spend 5-6 hours answering professional emails, leaving me very little time to sleep if I want time to write, too…and sometimes I just can’t fit in the personal emails in a consistent manner, though it doesn’t mean I love those people any less. I’m just…overwhelmed.
It’s a mess. I’m a turtle. Hi. I love you, you’re wonderful, I very much appreciate the lovely messages you send me, but I just don’t have the spoons. I’m sorry.
Q.) Why won’t you follow me back on Twitter?
A.) In all honesty, it would be an empty follow for you. It’ll inflate your numbers count, but not much else.
I don’t read my main Twitter timeline at all. I already follow over 2,600 people as I used to do mutual/reciprocal follow, and it’s just too much to keep up with. I do have a few smaller curated lists that are mostly my crit group and my IRL/lifelong friends, but even those I only read sporadically because I’m off social media so much.
I can spend time keeping up with thousands of people on social media, or I can write. I can’t do both. 🙁 I wish I could, but my brain just isn’t that efficient and I’m not that smart. So I just don’t follow back anymore, because there’s just no value in it for you.
But I’m happy to respond to anyone who @s me. <3 I talk to tons of lovely people all the time, and you’re all quite darling.
(Also, though, with my DMs being permanently closed, not following back helps me reduce the messages I get from people who ignore the “No DMs” in my Twitter bio.)
Q. WHY DON’T YOU EVER FINISH SERIES
A.) …can I blame my ADHD for this or nah
No, I just…yeah, I get way too many new ideas and then diversions pull me off from a series or make me struggle with it, or there’s some tricky business with a publisher, or…well, yeah. ADHD, anxiety, depression, PTSD, all of them add up to this mental cocktail of messiness that can make it hard for me to stick to things. Also timing as certain books do better at different times of the year, so I will at times switch focus to get a certain book out within its best possible season.
There’s also Criminal Intentions. Which…I’ve been trying really hard to stay faithful with, at one book per month per season and then a break in between. When I hold myself so tightly scheduled for that, when I want to do anything else…I just let myself wander and have fun to give myself a bit of a breather. Once Criminal Intentions ends with S3, I’d like to just take a dedicated 6-7 months to wrap up all my open series except maybe the Dissonant Universe, as that’s complicated and will likely take me years on a more measured schedule of 1-2 books per year.
Q.) How do I get access to your VIP section? I don’t have a password!
A.) Sign up for my newsletter. Once you confirm your subscription, you’ll get an automated email with the password.
Q.) The password I have doesn’t work anymore.
A.) I change it periodically and always include the new password in a newsletter email, so as long as you’re still subscribed then you’ll get the new password.
Q.) Why should I stay subscribed when I just want the free stuff?
A.) You don’t have to. Subscribe, get the stuff you want, unsubscribe. But I periodically add new free stuff, from playlists to artwork to novellas and full-length novels, so there’ll be new things you can’t access once the password changes.
I get it. You don’t want to get spammed by author newsletters with sales crap and my random meandering rambles just for a few free stories now and then. That’s why I try to keep my newsletters down to 1-2 per month, and sometimes don’t send any at all in a given month. I hope it’s a fair trade-off that isn’t too hard to deal with.
Q.) I signed up, but never got the password in the first place. I made sure to click the confirmation email, too.
A.) Check your spam and bulk mail folders. Check your trash/recycle bin, too, as sometimes mail services will automatically delete anything detected as spam. Although MailerLite, the mailing service I use, is very popular and 100% legit…sometimes they get shunted as spam due to a few bad actors they’re working to clear out of their system. You may need to whitelist blackmagic@blackmagicblues.com and newsletter@blackmagicblues.com.
9/10 it’s in your spam folder or trash folder. On the rare occasion that the automated email didn’t trigger or it was rejected by your server, email me. I can’t do much with server rejections, though. Once your server rejects the email MailerLite won’t let me manually add you.
I also can’t re-add you if you unsubscribed but want to rejoin. You’ll have to complete the sign-up process again to ensure compliance with GDPR and voluntary opt-in.
Q. I started getting your newsletter and I never signed up for it.
A.) Did you participate in a contest or giveaway that was also an author newsletter event? What happens in those is that the cost of entry for a chance to win is usually being added to the mailing lists of participating authors. The contest organizers should disclose that very clearly and transparently so that you know what you’re consenting to.
Either way, though, feel free to unsubscribe — I won’t resubscribe you and the only way you can be re-added is if you manually sign up yourself. Also, if you participated in a contest that did not make it clear that it was a mailing list builder event, I’d be very grateful if you let me know so I can make sure not to do business with that particular contest organizer again. There’s nothing wrong with newsletter builder events, but all contest entrants should be aware of the terms and conditions.
Q.) A triggering topic in your book upset me.
A.) I’m sorry you’re in pain because of something I wrote.
Did you read the content warnings beforehand? It’s impossible to write a book that isn’t going to trigger or upset someone, which is why I include the content warnings — so you can go in forewarned and decide for yourself not to read if a topic that’s included will upset you. I know Amazon skips ahead to the start of chapter one when you open a book (I keep flagging the “start” of my books at the warning but they change it every time), but please page back a little and check the content warnings. I can’t force people to read them, but I can try to make everyone aware that they’re there.
Did I leave something out of the trigger warnings? If so, I’m sorry for my neglect and oversight. If you feel comfortable and safe doing so — and only if you feel comfortable and safe — please let me know at blackmagic@blackmagicblues.com. I can’t take back your pain or reverse what’s already passed, but I can at least update the trigger warnings to ensure they’re comprehensive and make sure anyone else is forewarned in the future.
If you read the content warnings, were aware it might hurt you, and read it anyway…I can’t take responsibility for that. I just can’t. I’m sorry and I would never want you to be in pain, but if I tell you a fence is electrified and you stick your hand on it anyway, you’re responsible for that choice.
Not me, and not the hypothetical fence.
Q.) But I have to buy the book to see the content warning. What if the content warning makes me not want to read it? Then I’ve just wasted my money, and returns with Amazon are annoying.
A.) Actually, you don’t need to buy the book! Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature lets you get a quick preview of the book, and since the CWs are in the front they’re always included in that. You can just peek real quick before purchase, read the CWs, and then decide if you want to buy or not after that.
Q.) Why don’t you put the content warnings in the blurbs like some authors do?
A.) Amazon has banned two of my books for that now, and I’d rather not risk it when I already stress myself half to death butting heads with them all the time.
I know some authors get away with it, but it’s a matter of sheer volume and slipping through the cracks. It’s also sometimes a matter of time — I had books with CWs in the blurbs that were fine before but on review just during an update with new back matter or some such, got banned and lost all their reviews during content checking, and had to be re-published as new titles from scratch. Amazon basically doesn’t like CWs in the blurbs because many authors use tongue-in-cheek CWs to bait people with risqué content and entice purchase, and that ticks Amazon off enough that they ban books with legit content warnings in the blurbs, too.
Q.) You spell “shit” as “shite” and “ass” as “arse,” and you say “white guys” as if you aren’t one. Are you foreign?
A.) American born, brown as the day is long, and from a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual background. You’d be surprised how many brown people who speak multiple languages are from here.
The spellings…all right, this is silly, but I first learned written English from very old books (while I learned spoken English from kindergarten and TV). So I first learned the British spellings of a lot of words. My high school English teacher trained most of it out of me, but not all – though I should really train myself to stop anyway, as it looks affected and pretentious, and I don’t even use “shite” the right way half the time.
It’s a thing that’s not that uncommon with diaspora POC no matter where we live. Colonialism is a hell of a drug, and the way language assimilation is pushed on us with English can happen through a variety of paths.
Q.) Why did you take down the Speak Project?
A.) No one was using it. Also people who read it weren’t reading the names on the posts, and thought they were all from me. And while the sympathy and kindness were sweet, those weren’t my stories or my pains.
Q.) Why did you take down Dammit, Cole?
A.) Again, no one was using it. Plus it was a whim and someone else’s idea that I’m just not really into anymore.
Q.) I won something from you in a contest and haven’t gotten it yet.
A.) Any digital items such as gift cards, you should’ve gotten within 24-48 hours. If you didn’t, email me at blackmagic@blackmagicblues.com; it’s possible it was overlooked in my emails. If it’s a physical item, those are on pause right now for two reasons; I’m re-covering all my books and waiting to stock up on physical copies until they’re all done, plus since I just moved I really need to set up a virtual P.O. for a return address so I’m not just giving out my home address everywhere. Once that’s taken care of, I’ll get caught up on any backlogged books that need to be signed and sent. Sorry for the delay, but thank you for your patience.
Q.) Who is Tybalt?
A.) Tybalt was my geriatric little monster of a cat, whom I loved against all reason. After first losing his hearing to a battle with FHV, he suffered a seizure that left him with feline vestibular syndrome. In March of 2015, after nearly fifteen years with me, he died of complications from a much larger seizure. The cat in The Lost is named Tybalt in honor of him – and my new boys, Mercutio and Benvolio, took their names from the same play. After Benvolio died of congestive heart failure a few years ago, I adopted Mab so Mercutio wouldn’t be alone, and kept up the tradition with her name.
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