Ghosting people on Ghost

It seems as though, after much heartache at the end of last year about the state of my now defunct Substack, I transferred my web presence to Ghost and proceeded to make good on the name.

I was looking at the dates on my articles and in the words of the immortal prophets Staind, it's been awhile.

Sorry about that.

Truth be told, I've found that every time I've sat down to write something non-fiction this year, the kind of thing that has been the purview of this blog in the past, I've just found it exhausting rather than cathartic in the way that I usually do. For example, I don't have anything particularly new to say about AI, and honestly the whole subject just bores and irritates me at this point so I don't want to spend any more time on it. I really prefer to spend my energy talking about things I enjoy.

On that note!

There are a couple of big moments that I probably should have shared in an update before this, and I hope you'll forgive me this moment of giving the old writing career a bit of a shout-out. I do have some substantive work to share on here, but it'll be in a little while once some of my non-writing life things slow down a little bit.

Anyway, behold!

I'm Speaking at the National Writers' Conference!

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be selected to represent my writing group Meridian Australis at the National Writers' Conference on September 12! It's at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, but I believe it's also being streamed live. Tickets and more details here if you're interested!

The subject of the discussion panel is "Submit, Sign or Start a Small Press" and I'll be sharing the stage with a number of publishing professionals, and an academic who studies the publishing industry. I'm really looking forward to it, both to talk about the process I go through as an independent author and the way we at Meridian go about publishing our works AUSTRAL and CRUX.

It's also very weird that I'm now at a point where people are willing to put me on stage specifically to ask me questions about the publishing process. I guess it's just one of those things where if you just do the thing for a while, at some point people will start asking you how you did it.

Speaking of doing the thing.

The Savage Aether and The Disconnected Came Out!

The official release date for The Savage Aether and The Disconnected was April 2, 2026, and I have a months-old, half-finished, extremely thankful newsletter still sitting in my drafts about it.

This campaign was a resounding success! I've already sold through the special editions of both books, and had to order more. It's been received well and praised for its social commentary and more than one person has reached out personally to tell me how much they loved it.

As I have said about this story before; I started writing so that I could write this book. It was fifteen years in the making, and I still occasionally look at it in slight bewilderment that it made it into the world.

I'm incredibly proud of it, and I think if I've done anything well it's building a version of a cyberpunk future that's so unappealing that even the most diehard tech-bros might read it and have second thoughts about the world they're trying to bring about.

If you haven't picked up a copy yet, you can do so from my webstore or through most online retailers.

I got longlisted for a literary prize!

That's right, a serious person's writing competition! I got longlisted for the Furphy Literary Open Short Story Competition! I submitted a semi-autobiographical story of how I made my way from working on an oyster farm to ultimately landing in Melbourne.

I didn't make the shortlist, unfortunately, but I am now trying to get the story published elsewhere. I'll update if I manage to place it, and you can all read it, and I can pretend for a moment I'm one of the literary elite, at least until I gush over how cool it was the day Horus slew the Emperor.

What I'm up to now

At the moment, as I said earlier, 2026 has turned into an extremely busy time. There's a bit of personal stuff I won't go into, but I'm also working three jobs at the moment and because of that I'm not writing nearly as much as I'd like to be. For now, I merely shake my fist at Capitalism.

However, I am working on a new novel (one must imagine Sisyphus happy), and at last count I was nearly a quarter of the way through. I hope to have a first draft done by the end of this year. This is a bit different to Sunward Sky and The Savage Aether, and I'm leaning into the Australiana and 90s-core of it all. I've been enjoying the process on this one, and hopefully I can share something more soon.

What I've been enjoying recently

Music: Karnivool – In Verses

The 'vool are one of my favourites, and have been for a long time. That said, their third album left me a little cold, and the last time I saw them live was at Big Day Out '09. This album is a cracking return to form, and I saw the tour, bought the hoody, drank the beer. It was a glorious night.

Pick of the songs: Drone

Movie: Tuner

After watching the incredibly mid Project Hail Mary, a movie that entirely lived up to the promise of the book (sorry Andy Weir), Tuner was a real refresh. The story follows a prodigiously talented piano player who can no longer play due to hypersensitive hearing. He's forced into a life of crime as a safecracker, something his hearing makes him extremely good at, in an attempt to recoup medical expenses (it's an American film, after all). It's really well done, and it's sensitive to the way disability is portrayed without necessarily being about disability. Go see it if you haven't.

TV: The West Wing

I know it's liberal fantasy, okay? I know. But as we now live in a world of hot nonsense, it's really, really nice to sit down at the end of the day and enjoy the fantasy of intelligent and caring people striving to make democracy a better place. Good lord, it's just comforting to watch. Jed Bartlet, where the hell are you now?

Thanks for reading, and I'll catch you next time.

Henry