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A large pile of branches and yard debris burns with bright orange flames and smoke in an open area, surrounded by bare trees, old buildings, and a parked vehicle on a clear day.

Hi, Prairie!

So, I’m building an ecosystem.

I needed a mental health project, something where I could see tangible results for my efforts and feel I was actually accomplishing some good, and a bonus would be something that was physically tied to my locality. I decided to expand my fight against our local invasive species into a prairie restoration.

The seal of the state of Indiana features a bison in the foreground, a man using an axe near a tree, hills, and a rising sun in the background, encircled by the words "Seal of the State of Indiana 1816.

Now, to be clear, my particular neighborhood was never high prairie, not the kind you’re thinking of with bison and grizzlies. (Yes, grizzlies were once plains animals, before they were pushed out!) Indiana did have bison, as seen on our state seal, but my county was historically closed canopy forest, often over bogs and fens, and our state grasslands were a different kind of prairie than what people usually picture.

The forests have been fully clear-cut, no original woodlands remaining, and the bogs and fens mostly filled in or drained. I can’t restore an old growth forest in my lifetime — but I can recreate another environment we also had in central Indiana, and bringing back restored native grasses and forbs (wildflowers) is practical and useful, even without a bison to browse it. My restoration is really more of a recreation, but it will benefit both pollinators and people.

Hi, Prairie!
four red candles in soft focus, photo by PicJumbo

Holiday Cards 2025

Every year, I offer to send Christmas cards to anyone who wants one. I’ve sent cards nearly all over the world (still need Africa and Antarctica), and it’s been great fun.

The last couple of years, we’ve had several card tiers to choose from, whether a totally free card or a handmade card with ornament, bookmark, or story to help defray the costs of cards. This year, due to some outside constraints, we’re going to have only the free cards.

Let’s go!

Holiday Cards 2025

Fire in Unexpected Places

I recently turned in a short story which featured a natural gas fire burning eternally in deep in the forest. This was based on real life sites, but when I started reading up on this rare phenomenon, it was slightly less rare than I’d thought! Here’s a quick… Fire in Unexpected Places

Two fantasy novels stand upright, slightly overlapping. The front cover, "The Poet’s Eye," shows two people facing columns and a bright light. The second book, "The Prince’s Song," depicts two figures near domed buildings at sunset.

Win a free book box!

Two fantasy novels stand upright, slightly overlapping. The front cover, "The Poet’s Eye," shows two people facing columns and a bright light. The second book, "The Prince’s Song," depicts two figures near domed buildings at sunset.

Enter your guess at what name is in the books’ inscription, and the winner will receive a free box of books and swag!

While signing and shipping to fulfill the Backerkit campaign, I ended up signing an extra set of books to the same name. Honestly, one bonus signing is a pretty good error rate among so many packages, but now I have an extra set of books. Ordinarily I’d donate them to a library or one of our semi-regular tell-me-where-to-donate-a-book polls, but I thought it’d be fun to play a little game.

Let’s guess the name in the books!

Win a free book box!

Amethyst Prince

Look, I’ve loved Two Steps From Hell for a long time. I don’t bother to peruse their albums before purchasing; I just toss them into my download cart without question. Then I add them to playlists and play them, straight through or on shuffle. So I don’t actually know the titles of all the songs I love, weird as that may sound.

Tonight I’m editing the climactic scenes of The Prince’s Song. The prince in question is the Amethyst Prince, whose traditional court title happens also to recall the properties of amethyst, once considered to have purifying effects to negate alcohol or other intoxicating effects. This speaks to the character’s isolation in a performatively hedonistic culture very different from his own values.

Amethyst Prince

Giftmas Create-A-Thon!

Many of you will remember that I typically participate in Giftmas each year, a writers’ fundraising event for a food bank. This year, we’re doing something a little different! A bunch of writers and creators are working toward various goals, and we’re asking for your pledges to support… Giftmas Create-A-Thon!

An Adventure on Fuji-san

On relatively short notice (just less than a month), I decided with two friends to climb Mt. Fuji.

This wasn’t quite as ridiculous as it sounds. I had traveled with these friends in Japan before, specifically for a week of mountain hiking on the Kumano Kodō. While I live in a former swamp at just 400 feet above sea level, I know from other hikes that I handle altitude well enough to transition quickly. So I hopped a plane and burned some miles to Tōkyō.

But I didn’t land and immediately start hiking; I love visiting Japan, and we made a few stops first.

An Adventure on Fuji-san
An image of a vintage Japanese print featuring calligraphy. The left panel shows black stylized calligraphic art resembling a tengu face, while the right panel includes vertical text in black ink

A Senjafuda Joke. (I’m a nerd.)

Want to be on the inside of a very inside joke?

I have a talk about senjafuda, paper seals marked with one’s name or pseudonym pasted at shrines and temples, originally as an act of devotion. The pasting later also became an act of self-promotion or as a contest against priests or other pasters (who can get their name to the highest point on the temple ceiling? and so on), and more stylish senjafuda were created specifically for trading and collecting.

A wooden interior featuring a steep staircase leading to a room with a high, textured ceiling. The ceiling and walls are adorned with numerous senjafuda labels, creating a rustic and patterned aesthetic. Rails are installed along the staircase for support.
Senjafuda pasted inside the Sazaedō in Aizuwakamatsu.

In the 1700s, a samurai named Hagino Kinai Nobutoshi went on pilgrimage on behalf of his lord’s brother, stricken with smallpox. He famously pasted many senjafuda at shrines and temples, legitimizing and popularizing the practice as a person of rank doing this in his official capacity.

A Senjafuda Joke. (I’m a nerd.)
Sableye

When Aliens Invaded Rural Kentucky

In 2017 I traveled to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which was the location of longest totality for the solar eclipse. You can read about how that went over at this post. But during this season of celestial event anticipation (we have another total eclipse happening this spring, this time in my backyard), I want to re-visit a story I told back then.

Totality

crescent sun
This tiny sliver of sun was still throwing strong shadows — or shade. Photographed through the telescope.

I’d seen partial solar eclipses before, but never totality, and wow. I’d read repeatedly that there is a real difference, and it’s true. The partial coverage was fun, especially as it advanced, when the sunlight got all weird like someone had screwed up the Photoshop brightness/contrast settings. You want to worry that you have eclipse blindness already (you don’t, it takes a day or two to show effects even if you stupidly stared directly into the sun), but it’s just the atmosphere refracting the reduced light.

Totality was a very trippy experience. The sun was SO BLACK, and my poor phone camera just wasn’t equipped to handle the contrast. Cicadas sang as twilight fell. I could see the corona with my naked eye. There was a 360-degree sunset. It was really cool, and not nearly long enough even at the country’s longest totality. (See the photos on the original post.)

I’m sad to be missing the eclipse this year, but at least I got to experience it in 2017!

Little Green Men

That eclipse trip prompted me to look up details on the alleged alien invasion in that area decades before.

On August 21, 1955 — yes, the 2017 solar eclipse date was an anniversary — 8 adults and 3 children reported an assault on their farmhouse by “little men” they claimed were extraterrestrials. (The color green was added in later media reports, and this may be the trope-namer for the phrase.) They fled to the Hopkinsville police station to ask for help, saying they’d been fighting the creatures for 4 hours.

The whole affair started when one of the men went out to retrieve water from the well. He saw a bright rainbow-colored light which he described as a flying saucer shoot overhead and land beyond a nearby treeline, hissing. He went inside and reported it to the family, who laughed at his tale — until not long after when the little men, with gangling arms, stumpy legs, and a swaying gait, approached the house and began to peer in through the windows.

When Aliens Invaded Rural Kentucky