November 2025: Horror × Hope

October was a chaotic month, but also a productive one!

I started a newsletter called Horror × Hope which features my original fiction—horror, hopepunk, and everything in between—non-fiction pieces pairing horror and hope in current events, book reviews, and occasional craft posts. You can learn more about it in my Introduction to Horror × Hope, and you can subscribe here.

Horror × Hope is hosted on Ghost, and is currently syndicated to Substack and Medium. While Ghost is the primary platform, I’m gradually expanding syndication to connect my work with other communities in accordance with the POSSE principle.

My personal, Kit-based newsletter—the sign-up form you see at the bottom of this site—will still get these monthly digest updates, but if you want to follow my horror and hopepunk work closely, you’ll want to jump over to Horror × Hope.

Writing

I am very excited to have secured a spot in the Rainforest Writers Village in February 2026! It’s a five-day writing retreat at the Rainforest Resort Village on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula. I’ll have a cabin in the woods all to myself, in the middle of Washington’s long dark rainy season. The vibes for writing new horror—perhaps a start on a long-form work?—should be immaculate.

I’ve also got some new fiction on the way!

In We Are All Terrorists Now, a group of fascist vigilantes raid an antifa coven (it goes poorly for them). I’m doing final revisions now, so look for this one to come online in just a couple weeks.

In Some Horrors Are Gilded, I accidentally wrote… poetry? What? I’m still working through some early edits on this one, so I’m thinking late November.

Further out, I’m working on an exploration of archaeology and ritual from a far-future perspective; an uncanny job interview where nothing is as it seems; and an alternate take on the legend of the lost colony of Roanoke.

Publishing

Shiraki Press kept me super busy this month.

I finished early review ebook and print galleys for our first book, and these definitely took me the longest because they’re also the first galleys I’ve ever made, so every little detail presented a novel problem to solve, while I was also establishing a brand-new workflow from scratch. Subsequent galleys—including ARCs and finals for this book, plus everything for later books—will now go a lot faster, but this was an extremely engaging learning experience, and I’m so excited for when I finally get to share the work.

Expect our first cover reveal and ARC announcement in January!

I also spent a ton of time and effort setting up our publisher accounts at all the various distributors, aggregators, and retailers that make up our publishing pipeline. We’re pursuing a “wide” strategy—which just means we’re selling in many more places than Amazon—and that means we have to interface with many companies. This is another area where the first-time setup is grueling, but once it’s done, things get much, much easier from there on out.

Reading

In October, I read The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling and Magica Riot by Kara Buchanan. Keep an eye out for my reviews of both on Horror × Hope over the next couple weeks!

I did not make it to The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones like I’d originally intended, so that’s still on the TBR for November; it got pre-empted by my library hold for Cherie Priest’s It Was Her House First coming available, which I’m now partway through and enjoying immensely. I’m also really looking forward to getting into A Legacy of Blood and Bone by Millie Abecassis.

Community

I joined DreamCasters, a project of DreamForge Magazine. It’s been a delightful experience so far! Scot and Jane are excellent hosts, and the community is filled with lovely people.

Anyone can join by supporting this fantastic hopepunk magazine on Patreon.

That’s all for now. See you next time!