This update is a bit chaotic this time around. Have fun! ;)

April for me was all about Moon Joy. The collective dopamine given to us by the Aretemis II astronauts cannot be understated. And now, you can actually have your own moon joy! A replica of the Rise plushie - the gravity indicator used by the crew - is available on the NASA website.

When I was helping to coordinate the volunteers with Meals on Wheels (miss y'all!), every so often I would send along the NASA picture of the day in our weekly updates. For this month, I give you the Artemis III Rocket Core and the progression of the Artemis III mission. The dopamine has been such a needed release in this era of war and increased fascism in an already troubled country.

Also, if you aren't a volunteer for Meals on Wheels, I recommend it so much. Trust me. (See: dopamine!)

General Update:

Dinos & Dice! The League of Utah Writers! Under the Umbrella!

I started off the month with the chance to yet again run a D&D game at the Utah Museum of Natural History. The majority of players at my table were very new to the game (or hadn’t played since the 2nd edition came out). One of my favorite things in the world is getting to introduce people to this game I fell in love with. My whole life, I have been interested in playing but never really got into it for so many reasons. But, when my soon-to-be wife got super into it during the pandemic, I went along for the ride. When she decided she wanted to practice running games, we gathered a bunch of our friends from around the country and for the last few years, every other Sunday we wander through Faerun, spending more time chatting than playing, and it is like Church for me. When the pandemic started to settle, we joined the throngs of queers who go to play at the Legendarium. I’d go along for the ride - trying to get some writing done - but I wasn’t there to play.

Fast forward to 2026: I’m DMing, playing in 3 games, and now running a campaign of my own. And sometimes, I’m lucky enough to take players through mazes and puzzles and fire swamps in places like the Utah Museum of Natural History. I paired my players up with their own floral dragons and after the session, we donned some flower crowns from Native Floral (thanks, Morgan!)

After the game at UMNH, I was soon presenting on Mythology and Fanfiction at the spring Pre-Quills conference with the League of Utah Writers. Not only did I get a ton of really good info from the conference overall (thank you so much to Katie Ferriello for her information about query letters), and get to hang with some amazing folks from my writers group, but I had so much fun talking about two of my favorite things: mythology and fanfiction.

But April wasn’t done yet! I forgot to take pictures at this one, but I also was able to run a writing workshop at Under the Umbrella. It’s one I’ve run before - where we talk about what it means to create a character bible, and then actually do the thing. We put together zines that fit the character bible idea for a character we are building, and then talk about the character. One of the participants really knocked the exercise right out of the park and I wish I’d been able to make a copy of her zine to use in future workshops.

This month I am doing a new variant of this workshop, and we are going to use tarot and oracle cards and concepts to build character bibles. So, if you are interested, please join up!

This month, I am highlighting the Community Curation Project at Under the Umbrella Bookstore. Among the many amazing things that Under the Umbrella supports in the community is their Community Curated Shelf. Proceeds from this shelf go to different community groups and non-profits. May's support is for Red Canary Song, which creates safety and awareness to the vulnerable population of Asian sex workers and massage workers.

In between all of that, I had some very successful queries go out and I’m holding my breath waiting for what I hope will be good news …

All right! On to shameless self promotion time!

The other day on social media, I made an offhand comment that living in Utah is like living in a Mountain Goats album, and my favorite comment was from someone who was trying very hard to refute the truth of the statement, but was unable to.

Which leads me to the Salt City Queers romance series and the novels I am writing.

So, I’ve mentioned Patreon before but I’m here to talk about a new launch for me and the platform.

Real talk: I got into this writing process thinking that I was going to use my patreon to highlight work that wasn’t my romance writing. But over the last couple of months, I’ve only been consistently frustrated with my inability to meet goals that were set. Why? Because my world right now is 100% my Salt City Queers crew. I want to share everything I can about Siobhan and Jenn and Brooklynn and Gina and Carlos and Rosemary and Ethan and Katie and Meg.

So, patreon is shifting. We are going to build a platform, y’all. We are going to build this story together. The goal of the patreon is to build the platform so that when the books do come out, there is a solid base of support to make this world a success.

People ask me what the best way to support is, and honestly, it is through the patreon page. Part of the reason for this is that if I am picked up by a small or traditional publisher, it helps to show them that I have a marketable product. If I continue on the independent publishing route, your financial support makes my product better because I can pay for editors and better distribution options. You will need to create an account on, and I know that is a pain. We are all tired of needing accounts for everything. But, patreon allows for regular, ongoing financial support and the more support I have coming in, the longer I get to do this. It’s a monthly subscription and the platform is safe!

Right now, there are four options to support:

1. You can just follow along for free! You’ll see the general updates and it’s a different bit of writing than my rambles here. Additionally, as I mentioned above, it shows support to potential publishers about the project.
2. The $2 a month tier gives you early access to the general updates and some extra special stuff like the occasional recipe or crafting rambles. Additionally, you will get access to the Discord (which if you are not familiar is just a place where people can come together and chat.)
3. At $5 a month, you get everything that the 2 buck chuck crew gets along with character breakdowns, outtakes from the story, and bits and blurbs about living queer in Utah (the history is actually really interesting, y’all.)
4. $10 a month gives you all of that plus a monthly postcard or zine or something from me.

I would love to eventually build enough of a platform to support a podcast about Queer Utah History, but I’m not sure I’m there yet. I am also very excited to announce that I am working with some queer artists like my friend Kit Cactus to design merch and other art related to the story as well. Once that’s up, I’ll give you the links.

But for now, I give you the pitch for Dancing in the Ghost Light, the first in the SCQ series.

Jenn Dawson is home. She’d fled to LA, leaving behind the ghost of her late wife and the friends they shared, but now she’s back in Salt Lake and managing the Deseret Rose Theater. If she still sleeps on the couch, and can’t talk to those friends yet, well, that’s tomorrow’s problem. Today, she has to prepare for rehearsals for her adaptation of Cat’s Eye and the arrival of her star, Siobhan Kinnally. So what if Jenn is realizing that the crush she had twenty-five years ago hasn’t really faded. As the show moves from table read to rehearsal, and previews through closing night, Jenn and Siobhan can’t deny the feelings that arise, even though Siobhan is heading to France after the show closes and Jenn isn’t leaving the theater. Will the community Siobhan finds and the lesson Jenn learns about what it means to honor lost love by loving again keep them together despite distance, or will the realities of theater life force them both to start over again?

(want more ... head on over to patreon!)

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What's Up For Me This Summer?

Well, Scribblers, I am getting married!

Yep. It’s finally happening. My partner and I have been together for 17 years and for so many reasons we decided that it’s time to make a contract with the state. The reason that pushed us over that cliff was financial - with my focus being writing and not a 9-5 job, I do need health insurance and the loss of the Obamacare subsidies puts health insurance completely out of my reach right now. But the truth is, I knew the night I met this girl that she was going to change my life and she has in only the best ways.

Because we have been together for so long, we don’t actually need anything so we wanted to use our registry to raise money for causes we support. If you are so inclined, you can follow the link to do things like sign up to be a member of Under the Umbrella bookstore or a regular supporter of the Utah Abortion Fund or KRCL. That would mean so much to us.

Summer Reads and Watches

So, y’all. We recently finished How to Get to Heaven from Belfast and it might be one of my favorite things I’ve ever watched. It’s on Netflix, and by the creator of the Derry Girls. It is very much a story of what happens when the Derry Girls grow up - but it isn’t the same characters.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is a dark comedy about what happens when the ostracized friend from the high school girl group dies suddenly and you just have to investigate and find out what really happened. I’m ready to watch it again, just to catch all the clues I missed the first time.

In book news, I just finished Dream On, Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake. She is my favorite romance writer and (I would argue) one of the best ones working today. She leans into the small-town vibe and her stories are delightfully queer and playful. In this one, Ramona is barely into her 30s and facing an empty nest as the sister she helped to raise is off to college and suddenly Ramona gets to live life for herself for the first time since she was thirteen. Into her small town rolls a Hollywood film crew and A-List disaster Dylan Monroe. Chaos ensues as they fake-but-really-date, battle insecurities about being together, and the gossip mill of not just a small town but the larger machine as well. Yeah, it sounds like I’m writing a blurb, but it’s so frikkin good. I read it in a day, okay. I laughed, I cried, and it’s kinda spicy too.

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SPONSORED AS ALWAYS BY: MY CATS Guest Sponsor this Month: Harper the Littlest Yeti This month’s post is a guest sponsorship. My friend Jessica has a sentient broom for a dog, and she is the greatest lil yeti that ever existed. I do love her (and Jessica) very much and when they were over at our place this month, I snapped this photo of Harper being so very done with human chaos and just wanting snacks. Jessica, feel better. And thank you for letting Harper sponsor the newsletter this month!

How To Support! ​Patreon: What do you get? Access to discord, excerpts and outtakes from the Salt City Queers novels, art, recipes, zines, and my willingness to send postcards to your elected officials if you so desire. ​Ko-Fi: What do you get? Links to my past work (some of it is even good), the ability to commission me to write for you, and the chance to support local, queer artists I want to hire to do my covers and such. Follow me on: ​BlueSky: It's better than twitter, but still pretty messy. ​Instagram: I try to post pictures of where I've been and what I'm up to, but it's mostly pictures of my cats. And soon, you will be seeing videos about ... stuff. ​Threads: I just joined. Not sure what I'm doing there yet except getting sucked into the algorithm.