This is a superhero fantasy story that takes place in the present between our universe and the fictional universe of the Crows' World.
I've been calling this story a "fake fan fiction" because it's based on a book that I outlined but didn't write called 19 Crows. When I started writing that book, things happened in the real world that made the story feel a little too close to real. I kept thinking about the characters and stories I wanted to explore, though. Earlier this year (2022) I was thinking about how an ancient magical practice for finding spiritual guides has been meme-ified by teens and twenty-somethings into a way to visit fictional worlds, and I thought about what would happen if someone went to a fictional world to seek a true spiritual guide. Of course! Why not?
As a writer, it feels a lot more comfortable to be creating a story where we already have one "happy ending" as a model, so the character who is dealing with their own challenges has something to hang his optimism on. As an activist whose been feeling pretty burnt out for a few years now, this fictional exploration can also be a chance to remember positive lessons I've learned along the way.
“I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries — the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin National Book Awards speech, 2014
I will post new stories here every other week, occasionally adding in a bonus story in between regular posts. Stories will also be collected into "Books" as we go along so that a new reader can easily go back and start at the beginning. You can support this project (coming soon!) and get access to additional formats (epub, PDF, mobi, audio narration) along with other extras.