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Leticia Urieta’s latest collection, The Remedy is the Disease, is out now from Undertaker Books.

This collection is a must-read for horror and speculative fiction lovers, especially those interested in body horror. Though her style is all her own, Urieta’s collection reminds me of Hailey Piper’s Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy and Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties. Fans of Piper and Machado will enjoy The Remedy is the Disease.

In addition to each individual story being beautifully told, the collection as a whole is unified around the idea of the body as a site of transformation, pain, connection, and the struggle for autonomy. Urieta’s easy movement along the horror spectrum, from the more fantastical to the eerily real, from werewolves to living pinatas to familial possession via tattoo, will keep you enthralled.

The theme of transformation runs throughout Urieta’s collection in stories such as “That Red Smile”, “You Don’t Go Where You Don’t Grow”, and “This Night World”. As a large part of the human experience involves our bodies changing without our control, these stories are sure to resonate with other readers and much as they did with me.

One of my favorite stories, “But What if Your Baby Grows Up to Be a Werewolf?”, beautifully entwines the dual transformations of lycanthropy and pregnancy as protagonist Jules fights for autonomy. It also emphasizes the all-too-grim reality of seeking medical care in a post Roe V. Wade United States.

I also really loved “Travel Guide to a Dying Body” which imagines shrinking technology that allows people to tour inside a dying person. This searing critique of capitalism and the medical industry is written as a blog entry with a comments section. It expounds on the problems of a culture which exploits the sick and vulnerable without offering adequate care or compensation. It also highlights the dubious ethics of influencer culture and tourism.

In another favorite story, “A Future You Never Asked For”, Ita is awoken early from cryosleep because a new therapy may help alleviate her chronic pain. But Ita did not want to be awoken early, and she experiences isolation as the well-meaning people in her life (parents, partner, therapist, and medical professionals) make choices for her. As Ita experiences, sometimes the people who love us best do us the most harm.

Not every ending is happy as Urieta’s characters struggle with the pains and problems of embodied existence. But as her protagonists attempt to assert control over their narratives and bodies, a thread of acceptance of the body surfaces which you don’t usually see in body horror. After all, the body may be a site of pain and vulnerability, but it is also how we experience beauty, love, connection, community, and everything that makes us human.

Urieta concludes her collection with a personal essay, “The Body is a Horror Classic”, which explores pain, chronic illness, grief, transformation, and autonomy. It’s a deeply personal essay, articulating Urieta’s own struggles with diagnosing and managing chronic illness, as well as the authors and media (The Thing (1982), The Low, Low Woods by Machado, and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, among others) which spoke to her as she developed as a writer and a person. She describes her body as a “beautiful monster” (139), a phrase which wonderfully encapsulates the tensions contained within this stellar collection.

In short, I highly recommend The Remedy is the Disease!

You can order it from Undertaker Books

here.

You can also sign-up for Urieta’s official launch party via Zoom on May 15^th at 7pm, CDT.

Learn more about Urieta on her website

I’m knuckling down on my goal to get a novel into shape, but, as always, the middle third is making me very grumpy.

I have a theory that I like writing short fiction because you often skip the middle. You give some premise and backstory information, but you’re essentially writing the climax/ending of a character’s longer narrative/story arc. I know, I know: the short story is its own unique form. But I don’t think I’m entirely wrong.

Another annoying thing about writing a novel: you have to explain things in a way that isn’t boring and doesn’t slow down the plot. In a horror short story, there can just be a monster. The novel has to explain the monster—or at least explain why there is no explanation for the monster.

When I’m taking a break from the novel, I’ve had fun playing around with short fiction, flash, and poetry. Thanks to Numinous Stones by Holly Lyn Walrath, I’ve learned about the pantoum. I mostly write free verse narrative poetry, but it’s always a fun exercise to try your hand at something with more structure.

Published and Upcoming:

• Read online now:

  • “The Patchwork Girl” on Uncharted

  • “The Ocean is Haunted and So am I” in 34 Orchard, issue 13

  • “Night of the Living Cabbage Patch Kids” in SpecPoVerse 2.1

• Coming soon!

  • “Elk Season” in Timber Ghost

  • “Barbie Grasshopper Dreamhouse” in Radon

    • One of the most upsetting things I’ve ever written!

On Adapting “The Patchwork Girl”:

I wrote the first draft of the “The Patchwork Girl” (out now on Uncharted) about two years ago. As I started typing it up, I realized that the premise could work for a short play, so I decided to adapt it and submit it to Hellerween (a performance of six short, original, spooky plays put on in October by Heller Theatre1). It was accepted!

“The Patchwork Girl” follows three girls into a grimy basement. The plan: do a ritual to learn what happened to their missing friend. My first major change came when I realized that three girls was too many. Unlike in a story, I didn’t have the space to differentiate and develop them. I condensed three girls into two: the instigator of the ritual and the reluctant accomplice.

Another factor was setting. The story is mostly set in a basement with a lot of symbolic detritus (piles of old sewing and hunting equipment for example) that couldn’t be procured for a minimalist set. We put this play on in a room that held maybe thirty people at a time, not on a stage. This actually increased the creepiness by bringing the audience closer to the action. It also allowed one of the actors to hide in plain sight and move through the audience towards the end of the play, startling a lot of people.

I think my favorite thing about writing a play is the changeable and collaborative nature of theatre. A short story undergoes edits and revisions, but once it’s published, its final form is set. In contrast, a play changes based on how the actors and the director alter and interpret the text. It was so cool to watch extremely talented people add nuance and layering which I hadn’t considered. I also collaborated with the actors to alter some dialogue for better flow.

In live theatre, every performance is different. It’s intimate and electrifying, especially if the audience is high energy. It felt surreal, and a little vulnerable, to watch my play, to be part of an audience engaging with the work in real time.

The other really cool thing about adapting this short story into a play was that I ended up going back and altering some of the writing, especially the dialogue, in the short story. Hearing and watching the play gave me insight into making meaningful revisions to the short story.

To sum it up: I loved adapting “The Patchwork Girl” into a play, and I’m thrilled that the short story version is now out in the world! If you’re a writer thinking of expanding into other mediums, I definitely recommend it. It helps you improve your craft and, more importantly, it’s a lot of fun.

Two other short plays I wrote for Hellerween (“I Only Eat the Dying” in 2023 and “Cornucopia” in 2024) also have story adaptations searching for a home. “I Only Eat the Dying” features a dying teenager visited by a creature disguised as her dead best friend. “Cornucopia” follows a detective interviewing a woman rescued from a cult whose injuries heal far too quickly. I’ve received some personal rejections for these stories and hope to sell them soon. I think they’re some of my best.

Recent Reads I’ve Loved:

• Acquired Taste by Clay McLeod Chapman

• Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism, 1968-1980 by Eleanor Johnson

• The Night is Not for You by Eman Quotah

• Model Home by Rivers Solomon

• Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

• Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall

• The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw (reread!)

• Convulsive by Joe Koch

• Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura

• Tomie by Junji Ito (a reread!)

• Numinous Stones by Holly Lyn Walrath

• Blood Wolf Moon by Elise Paschen

• The Remedy is the Disease by Leticia Urieta (ARC)

  • The latest collection from Urieta from Undertaker Books! Look out for a review of this gorgeous meditation on the body, transformation, autonomy, and monstrousness in the next day or so.

AI Data Centers Coming Soon to Your Neighborhood!

As always: If you write: you’re a writer. If you paint/draw/etc.: you’re an artist. If you type prompts into an of AI-generator, you are hurting other creatives and yourself.

Data centers also make terrible neighbors. I’m particularly concerned about this proposed data center near me in Broken Arrow, OK, especially since Tulsa’s temporary moratorium on data centers might make Broken Arrow a more attractive target.

Historically, industries and companies like this have come into states like Oklahoma, not actually generated anything lasting for the local economy, done a lot of damage that’s disproportionately shouldered by local residents, and then bounced without being on the hook for much.

One of my particular concerns for a data center in this area is that our water and power systems are already not the best. Broken Arrow has invested heavily in improving this aging infrastructure in recent years. To help fund this, our bills have gone up. My water bill has almost doubled in the past decade. My electric bill has gone up at least thirty percent, and there is already severe strain on our power grid during the summer. Our power has gone out several times, once for almost a week, during dangerously high temperatures. Did we and other residents just spend ten years paying higher rates to improve our infrastructure so some dubious company can take advantage of us?

We do not need all these new data centers because we do not need AI integrated into every aspect of everyday life. There are a few very limited areas where AI usefulness may outweigh the costs (e.g.: treating cancer) but forcing it down people’s throats at the cost of critical and creative thinking as well as the environment and communities is ridiculous.

My Website and Social Media Links:

Visit my very basic website to see my full list of publications with links! hvpatterson.com

You can also find me on Instagram: hvpattersonwriter and on BlueSky: hvpatterson

We hear a lot about separating the art from the artist. But as I walked around the Nelson-Atkins Museum, surrounded by an overwhelming display of human talent, something occurred to me: what if I threw out the art with the artist?

Granted, the Picasso and Gauguin pieces at the Nelson-Atkins weren’t the masterpieces of either artist, but when I took a step back from a perspective of awe, they lost their aura. They were just a few of the thousands of works in this museum, and against the backdrop of so much art, their significance lessened. I could choose to not give my attention to them and focus instead on other creative works.

I’m not advocating excising artists from history because they were terrible people. Censorship is dangerous in all its forms. But I am not an art historian or a curator or a painter. I’m just an individual engaging with creative work. Why should I give my limited time and attention to these artists?

I’m also not demanding other people refuse to engage with problematic artists. Everyone needs to come to their own conclusions. But I felt so free when I literally turned my back on Picasso and Gauguin. It was easy, not some morally complicated, angst-riddled denial of something I wanted3.

So, when you’re struggling with separating the art from a problematic artist, consider an alternative: toss the art and the artist out. Let the historians and the curators concentrate on preserving legacy. You are not obligated to spend your limited time on this earth giving your energy to any dead (or living) artist. You do not have to justify why you choose to not engage with an artist’s work. You can simply admire other artists.

A lot of our towering “geniuses” don’t truly earn that title. They are not gods. Don’t give them your energy. Be free.

Published and Upcoming:

• Out today! “Placentophagy” in That Old House: The Kitchen from Voices from the Mausoleum

• My first podcast appearance! HAA #20: Stowaway with H.V. Patterson | Ryan C Bradley

• “Haunted House Haiku” in Star*Line 49.1

• “It’s Halloween: Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” in Myths Reborn: Modern Tales of Cryptids & Dark Folklore from October Nights Press

• Poems and fiction upcoming in 34 Orchard, Uncharted, Timber Ghost Press, and more!

Update on Writing Resolutions:

I’ve already accumulated 20 rejections, so I’m ahead on my 100 rejections goal!

I wrote a poem a day in January, but I didn’t in February due to illness and the February Blues4. I’ve started again in March. So far, it’s been interesting to see what comes out. Some of the poems are speculative and possibly publishable, but a lot of them are deeply personal.

Recent Reads (and Rereads) I’ve Loved:

• Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (a reread!)

• The Scald-Crow by Grace Daly

• Moonflow by Bitter Karella

• Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel

• The Silenced by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

• Teenage Girls Can Be Demons by Hailey Piper

• Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

• Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

• Paw Kowolksi is a Monster by Sarah Langan

• Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

• The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, trans. by Sarah Moses

• Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris (a reread!)

• The Unveiling by Quan Barry

My creative writing group meets in a very cool shared arts space. We did an ekphrastic writing exercise based on what was in the room around us a few months ago, and I wrote about this weird little peanut/pug guy!

Plastic peanut pug on wheels

ignoble centaur

fused into

immobile peanut car

Your paws forever at 10 and 2

the wheel can’t steer

the car won’t drive

Covered in dust,

patina of universal indifference

your wrinkled brow asks:

Why am I this amalgamation?

Perhaps a teenage antichrist made you

named you:

God’s LiL Peanut

A young absurdist laughing

at theologians posture-postulating

that God still existed

My Website and Social Media Links:

Visit my very basic website to see my full list of publications with links! hvpatterson.com

You can also find me on Instagram: hvpattersonwriter and on BlueSky: hvpatterson

• Write a poem a day

  • I’ve kept this one so far! It’s actually been fairly easy because I don’t have to write a “good” poem. Sometimes I use a prompt, but a lot of the time something I’ve been ruminating about ends up on the page.

• Finish a longer creative work (maybe one of my five half-written novels)

  • I have not fulfilled this goal for several years. I don’t know exactly what block I have against finishing a longer work and getting it polished to a satisfactory point for possible publication. I’ll try to make 2026 the year!

• 150 submissions and/or 100 rejections

  • To be clear, this doesn’t mean 150/100 unique poems/stories/plays. With acceptance rates often below 5% or even 1%, acquiring a lot of rejections before publishing a piece is part of the process. It won’t work for everyone, but I’ve found making 100 rejections the goal gives me the courage to submit more ambitiously. Occasionally, the ambition pays off. If not, I still have the satisfaction of meeting a “quota”. I wouldn’t recommend any writer, no matter how established, have a quota for accepted or published pieces. So much is out of your control that this is a recipe for disappointment and hurt feelings. I’ve met this particular goal the last few years! Already have 16 submissions and 3 rejections.

Whatever your personal and creative goals for 2026, I hope that they aid in your personal growth and are not a source of unneeded anxiety or recrimination.

Published and Upcoming:

• “Bird Beak Warning” and “There is No Safe Haven from Human Desire” were published in SpecPoVerse Vol 1.3 Dec. 31st, 2025

• “Phalanges and Flames” was published in Into the Dark from All Worlds Wayfarer Dec. 21st, 2025

• “Tickborne” was performed on The NoSleep Podcast, Episode 20, Season 23 released Nov. 23rd, 2025 (subscribers only)

• “It’s Halloween: Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” is upcoming in Myths Reborn: Modern Tales of Cryptids & Dark Folklore from October Nights Press. Release date is January 21st, but you can preorder the eBook now

• Other stories and poems upcoming in the next few months in Uncharted Magazine, Star*Line, and 34 Orchard! Follow me on my socials and/or subscribe to stay up-to-date

Recent Reads (and Rereads) I’ve Loved

At the end of the year, I like to reread a few of my favorites. So, a lot of my favorite reads of December were rereads. I recommend rereading favorite books both as a reader and as a writer. As a reader, it’s soothing to return to comforting books, especially when you’re stressed. As a writer, rereads tend to deepen your appreciation for what is working in a book and allow you to see techniques or wording you might not have noticed the first time.

• Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (reread)

• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (reread)

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (reread)

• That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming (reread)

• The Strange Thing that We Become and Other Dark Tales by Eric LaRocca

• A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

• Tender: Stories by Sofia Samatar

A Note on Jumping Spiders

When I was a kid, I had a smidge of arachnophobia. While I’m still not keen on spider bites and will never quite forgive the entomologist1 who tried to put a tarantula on my head during science camp (I was fifteen, but I still almost cried), I’ve come around on spiders. I’ve even written some poems and stories about them, which is how I show my love. The coolest spiders of all? Probably jumping spiders.

In addition to being so adorable and personable that people keep them as pets, jumping spiders seem to “watch” you in a way that most other insects and arachnids just don’t. This is because their front pair of eyes2, like human eyes, are “camera-like”, meaning they can focus and capture an “image” with a high degree of focus and detail. They really are able to see us (to a degree) like we see them. They use this ability to stalk and pounce on prey.

There are sometimes jumping spiders on this bridge at a park near my house. They usually hide when they see me, creeping around a corner so just their eyes are sticking up, watching me (I’ve watched videos where octopuses hide from observers, with just their eyes peeking out from behind coral, in a similar way). It’s as if they’re aware of me as an observer and themselves as something observed. Really cool. Sometimes, they’re bolder, like this one my husband got some lovely shots of (with a basic camera phone, mind you—not a specialized camera). Look at this gorgeous creature!

My Website and Social Media Links:

Visit my very basic website to see my full list of publications with links! hvpatterson.com

You can also find me on Instagram: hvpattersonwriter and on BlueSky: hvpatterson

December is a strange month. The year is ending, a lot of people celebrate Christmas, and, in America, we have a cultural expectation that December is a cozy time for family, a renewal of faith (in religion, in mankind, etc.), and reflection. But there’s a dark side to winter—and I’m not talking consumerism or getting stuck at the airport while travelling.

December 21st is the winter solstice and the darkest day of the year. It’s a turning point, and traditionally such times are dangerous. The “veil” between worlds, between the living and the dead, the past and the present, etc.—it’s thinner. Things can cross over. Hungry things. Combine this with the historic reality in the Northern Hemisphere of winter’s power to kill through cold and/or starvation, and you can understand why so many horror stories are set during this season.

So! Why not snuggle comfortably into your chair with a hot drink and a good book? Below are some recent reads I’ve loved, if you’re looking for suggestions.

Recent Reads I’ve Loved:

• Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk trans. by Heather Cleary

• The Bone Picker by Devon A. Mihesuah

• The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum

• DEAR STUPID PENPAL by Rascal Hartley

• Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

• Futility by Nuzo Onoh

New Publications:

• “Tickborne” is on the NoSleep Podcast (my podcast debut!!) Season 23, Episode 20 (available to subscribers only)

• “Molting Love” in Crepuscular Magazine

• “The Heat Death of Our Universe”, “Shark’s Eye View”, “Unanswered Prayer”, “After the Funeral”, and “Resurrection Plant: Selanginella Lepidophylla” in Katabatic Circus Vol. 2 from Angry Gable Press

  • “Resurrection Plant: Selanginella Lepidophylla” was nominated by AGP for a Pushcart Prize! My first Pushcart nomination!!

• Bonus Upcoming Publication: “Phalanges and Flames” in Into the Dark. Out December 21st (the solstice!), preorder here

Why You Should Read Non-Fiction

As a writer, you get asked where your ideas come from. The weirder and more disturbing your stories, the greater the look of perturbation on people’s faces when they ask this question. The only true answer is: from existing. From what you experience, what you ruminate on, what really bothers or intrigues or excites you. There is no true shortage of inspiration. There is only a shortage of time to explore the world around you.

But, what if I don’t have any cool or original ideas? I can hear the naysayers…saying. What if I live an average life in the suburbs with my lovely spouse, and I never do anything dangerous or cool? What can I possibly write about?

I promise you: weirdness is everywhere. It is in history, in science, in biography. There are things going on in the lifecycles of some creatures that would melt your brain. Freud went on to found psychoanalysis after failing to find male reproductive organs in eels (which…might explain a few things)1.

So, what should you do, writer-in-search-of-inspiration?

READ NON-FICTION.

Below are some of my favorite non-fiction reads of 2026. I may use some of what I learned in future stories. More importantly, I grew as a thinker and a person by exposure to new ideas. As do we all.

H.V.’s Non-Fiction Top 12 Reads of 2025:

• The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

• Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer

• An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

• The Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Relative by Maggie Aderin-Pocock

• Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon

• How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

• The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios

• Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts

• The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unknown by Colin Dickey

• The State of Sequoyah by Donald L. Fixico

What do all of these books have in common? They presented new information in a way which made me reevaluate my previous beliefs—leading to paradigm shifts in my thinking2. I debated giving a brief summary of every book and my thoughts on it, but I’ll spare you.

Are you not a writer? Guess what: you need to read non-fiction, too. Read biographies of your favorite sports icons. Read about artistic techniques, homesteading, World War I, psychology, math.

We get it in our heads that we’re “done” with learning when we graduate. Guess what? You’re not. None of us know very much about anything. And that’s good! Learning about things you find interesting at your own pace is deeply satisfying.

Not sure where to start? Go to the library and grab ten books that seem cool. Read at least ten pages of each of them. Select the most interesting. BOOM. Done.

As AI slop3 continues to warp our senses of what’s real, it’s more important than ever to practice critical thinking. The easiest and cheapest way? Reading (though, now we have to make sure books aren’t AI slop, which is deeply frustrating).

And, yes, audiobooks 100% count as reading. I do about half of my reading on audiobooks through the Libby app. Shoutout to Tulsa City County Library for having such fantastic resources.

I hope you enjoyed my rant/lecture/ramble/impassioned defense. See you all next year! Enjoy Santa in Jail.

Thank you for signing up for my newsletter. This is a good way to keep up to date on recent/upcoming publications, things I’ve read, and other cool things1.

As 2025 winds down, I’m reflecting on my writing journey over the last few years. At the beginning of 2021, I hadn’t published anything outside of a few student-run publications. I was scared to put myself out there—Honestly, I’m still scared. But I’ve been able to push through, thanks to a wonderfully supportive spouse, family, and community.

Now, I’ve had more than fifty pieces of short fiction and poetry published in speculative/horror anthologies and magazines. I’ve also coedited and published two anthologies through Horns and Rattles Press.

Alongside the successes, I’ve racked up hundreds of rejections and developed a much tougher skin. You have to when acceptance rates are regularly less than 5%!

More importantly, I've learned a lot about myself and the importance of art. Writing has become an important outlet in uncertain times and a healthy way of exploring my own darker thoughts and fears. There is a lot we can’t control in our complex, global world, but making art is a deeply human trait which centers us and connects us with each other across the world and across time2. So, keep making art! Good art, bad art, art just for you, art for the world. And support human creativity when and how you can.

New Publications:

• “Ancient Forest Dreams” in Starline 48.4

• “Our Lady of the Grain” in Harvest the Night: An Anthology of Folk Horror from Chthonic Matter

• “Wren’s Day” in Season’s Grievings from ROF Publishing

Recent Reads I’ve Loved:

• Human Sacrifices by Maria Fernando Ampuero, trans. Frances Riddle (Content Advisory: SA)

• The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum

• Root Rot by Saskia Nislow

• Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

• Spread Me by Sarah Gailey

• The Whistler by Nick Medina

• The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson

Hellerween: Writing Short Plays

For the third year in a row, my work was selected for Hellerween! This is an annual spooky, short play event in October put on by Heller Theatre in Tulsa. “Cotard’s Syndrome” ran alongside five other fantastic plays, all written and directed by locals.

Though I did A LOT of performing as a kid (and, on a few occasions, sneakily tried to edit my lines so they sounded better), it never occurred to me to try playwriting. I had a similar feeling about poetry: I’d written a lot of angsty poems as a teenager, but I didn’t see myself as a poet. What I’ve learned is that I just want to write spooky and/or speculative work. In fiction, in poetry, in plays—as long as there’s something weird going on, I’m down! I’m considering trying audio script and/or screenwriting soon—spooky scripts only, naturally.

I’ve absolutely loved the collaborative aspect of turning a script into a performance. As we rehearsed, I worked with the actors to alter some dialogue to sound more natural and flow better. It was exhilarating to watch the director and actors integrate organic movement and staging into the piece, adding a level of complexity to the scene and making it their own.

I hope to keep working with Heller and maybe write a one-act or full-length play someday. Keep local theatre alive!

Horror Book Club Returns!

Victoria and I have resurrected Horror Book Club! She used to run it out of her store, Whitty Books, which closed earlier this year. For our first meeting, we read the excellent and deeply weird Root Rot by Saskia Nislow. For November, we’re reading the meditative Linghun by Ai Jiang (a reread for me).

My Website and Social Media Links:

Visit my very basic website to see my full list of publications with links! hvpatterson.com

You can also find me on Instagram: hvpattersonwriter and on BlueSky: hvpatterson

And finally: here’s a cool frog picture! A green tree frog. I see green and gray tree frogs pretty regularly at a park near my house.

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