Stories

I’ve been writing zines, blogs, newsletters, and more for decades. On this page you’ll find references to my recent work.

General American (2026)

Collected, downloadable version: General American (PDF)

When corporate AI begins translating workers into a single, “acceptable” voice for the drive-thru, a fast-food crew finds themselves navigating the uneasy space between protection and erasure. General American is about community under pressure, and the small, deliberate choices that allow people to care for one another inside systems that do not.

Who’s hungry?

I swear that I started mulling the idea for a ‘AI drive-through attendant’ before they became regular news items. However, if you’d like to explore more of what’s coming to a fast food restaurant near you:

• Burger King rolls out AI, named ‘Patty’, in headsets that track employee ‘friendliness’
• White Castle debuts AI and mobile ordering technology
• The Wikipedia article on “General American English” (or GenAm)
• A good piece on the dangers of performative resistance

Syndicated on the blog:

• Part 1
• Part 2 - Tues
• Part 3 - Wed
• Part 4 - Thurs
• Part 5 - Fri
• Part 6 - Sat
• Part 7 - Sun

Milkmaids (2026)

To cope with the drudgery of feeding hungry young models, a data trainer begins treating her charges with quiet care. This ‘milkmaid’ discovers that, even in a world of high-surveillance and disposable infrastructure, acts of ‘tending’ cultivate unexpected weight.

I submitted Milkmaids to Reboot for consideration in Kernel Issue #6, their annual print magazine. The theme is “feed”. If they pass, I may, subsequently, publish it to this website.

Signal in the Draw (2026)

Signal in the Draw is flash fiction (under 1,500 words) set on the upper great plains. It follows an aging pirate radio DJ whose principled resistance to the attention economy is quietly tested by a deeply local, human request. Through the lens of radio and remoteness, the piece explores questions of signal, care, and community; specifically, what does it mean to matter in places that do not readily measure response..

I submitted it to compete in the 2026 American Short(er) Fiction Prize in late January. Depending on how that goes, I may post a copy to this website in the future.

Moneyballer Americana (2026)

Collected, downloadable version: Moneyballer Americana (PDF)

Moneyballer Americana is a satire about money, modern masculinity, and choosing to make something real in a world increasingly about watching and wagering. Eli, a struggling bluegrass musician, gets swept up in sports betting and must choose between hype and hope.

This novelette started as Hyper-real Crimes in Unreality, a cool-sounding working title (and little else). As I played with what that story might be, the sheer volume of sports betting across the NFL just begged for attention. Some research later, and I was off and running.

Both my wife and I have unfortunate family stories related to gambling. And my college-aged son has some bracing anecdotes from his peers. You want to put $10 down on the winner of a game this weekend? Be my guest. But the speed and scale with which today’s mobile apps are designed to damage and defund is inexcusable; this is not your granny’s weekly bingo game.

If you’re interested in learning more about the stories behind the story, I highly recommend the following links:

• Authors Jonathan D. Cohen (Losing Big) and Johnisha Matthews Levi (Numbers Up) discussed gambling in America (and I highly recommend Cohen’s book, Losing Big, which I read while writing this piece)
• What Everyone Gets Wrong About Gambling on Sports
• YouTuber Drew Gooden’s essay on The Online Gambling Epidemic
• Sports Betting: What DraftKings and FanDuel Don’t Want You to Know
• Exposing the Gambling Epidemic
• CNN Partners with Kalshi, a gambling app that lets you wager on starvation in Gaza
• Israel accuses two of using military secrets to place Polymarket bets
• Derek David Johnson, my second cousin, whose profession provided the inspiration for my main character.

Syndicated on the blog:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

Hurricane David (2025)

Collected, downloadable version: Hurricane David (PDF)

Hurricane David is a corporate-gothic tech tragedy set in a near-future Florida Archipelago. A post-truth fable tracing the edges of where reality can be manufactured - and what happens when the natural order reasserts itself.

I actually came up with David’s Story while attempting to “futurecast” a version of “The Thrush and the Fowler” for 2024’s Aesop 2121 project. I, eventually, put it on the back-burner to focus on more positive depictions of the future. However, with the continued degradation of social media, the Florida Archipelago never strayed far. When it came time to finally plot things out, this tragedy was the result.

Some links for further reading:

• Disaster and insurance costs are rising. The middle class is struggling to hang on.
• Climate change isn’t slowing down South Florida’s waterfront real estate boom any time soon.
• How misinformation on social media has changed news.
• A 99% Invisible story on why adding a “category 6” to the Saffir Simpson scale is controversial.
• Zillow, bowing to economic pressure, removes climate risk scores from home listings.

Syndicated on the blog:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

The Biggest Little Bill (2025)

Collected, downloadable version: The Biggest Little Bill (PDF)

The Biggest Little Bill is a tech satire and civic noir. It was inspired by an overnight stay in Sparks, NV, during our family’s summer road trip. The Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRI), the world’s largest industrial park, is a real place. The $2 $3.45 $5 trillion capital expenditure on AI infrastructure, and the subsequent impact on local communities, is real. Osirtek’s data center, however, is fictional.

The story draws on months of research into data-center development across Nevada, the Dakotas, and New Mexico, including real reporting on water rights disputes, electricity rate hikes, and community outcry against “AI factories”. Karen Hao’s Empire of AI was also an inspiration. The work imagines what happens when one ordinary planner decides to push back.

"Data centres have been treated as part of the AI story, but they've become a story in their own right. There are energy and water demands, community impacts, and questions about whether it really makes sense to be building so many. It increasingly looks like their contribution to higher power bills is posed to become a major issue in the US midterm elections in 2026." - Paris Marx, tech critic, author, and host of the podcast Tech Won't Save Us

Some links for further exploration:

• ‘I can’t drink the water’ - life next to a US data centre
• Amazon Strategized to Keep its Datacenters’ Full Water Use Secret
• You know it’s bad when regional comics are making data centers the butt of their YouTube shorts.
• How Oregon’s Data Center Boom Is Supercharging A Water Crisis.

Syndicated on the blog:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

Aesop 2121 (2024)

While technology may change, human behavior does not. At least, that’s what reading the collection of Aesop’s Fables suggests. The characters and motivations in the parables, attributed to Aesop after he died in 564 BCE, remain relevant today.

The Aesop 2021 project was my contribution to a writing challenge with a few other software consultants. For every workday in March, 2024, I “upcycled” a hopeful and solar-punkish Aesop Fable. While the other participants were finishing their technical books, I was there, writing my weird little morality tales. I felt like a third wheel at times; always have to be different. Oh well. I still like them. And I think, with time, my art direction for the accompanying illustrations captures the early GPT zeitgeist.

• The Rose and the Aramath
• The Frog’s Complaint About the Sunn
• The WOLF and the LaMDA
• The Olive Tree and the Fig Tree
• The Code-Burner and the Fixer
• The Wolf and Crane & Co. PLLC
• The Fisherman Piping
• The Farmer and the Stork
• The Bear and the Fox
• The Father and His Sons
• The Lioness
• The Boastful Traveler
• The Girl and the Filberts
• The Salt Merchant and His Ass
• The Lion in Love
• The Kid and the Wolf
• The Broker and the Miller
• The Belly and Its Members
• The Dog and Its Shadow
• The Flies and the Honeypot