Area of Effect: Wisdom from Geek Culture

I’m excited to say I have two essays in Area of Effect: Wisdom from Geek Culture, exploring identity in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and the power of stories (and fairies!) in The Song of the Sea. The collection also includes contributions from award-winning (and oft quoted) author K.B. Hoyle, editor and poet Kyla Neufeld, and the multitalented Allison Alexander.

Readers of my blog probably know that I was a staff writer at Area of Effect magazine, published by the website Geekdom House (now defunct).

The good people who put out the magazine were serious about guiding their writers toward thoughtful engagement with geek culture and I’m grateful for their good work. I’m also grateful for their commitment to paying their writers, a commitment I benefitted from from 2017 until the end of 2018. Getting a pay cheque isn’t required to call yourself a writer but it does go a long way towards feeling valued.

Now, although the magazine is gone, Area of Effect the book stands as a witness to all the great ideas about games, books, movies and general geekery the team at Geekdom House wanted to explore. In fact, the book’s publisher is the spiritual successor of the original project.

Mythos & Ink is a Canadian small press you should check out. They’re accepting submissions to for Fantasy, Science Fiction and related non-fiction projects and I can vouch for their “passion for great stories and the community built around them” from my time writing within that community.

If you’re looking for a buffet of deep reads on superheroes, monsters, and adventure, you can’t go wrong with Area of Effect.