You don’t need “lived experience” to write well. To create believable, complex characters and plots outside your realm of experience requires empathy, curiosity, research skills, imagination, sensitivity, and a solid understanding of nuance. These are all up to you to cultivate.

Learn from others, but do not emulate them.

Douglas Hackle describes his style as "batshit-insane, unhinged, and recklessly silly" crafted with care and discipline.

Located in a salon-style viewing room in the Seattle neighborhood of Madrona, Koplin del Rio gallery is debuting its brand new space with the work of Laurie Hogin, the artist behind the cover of our Summer 2025 Issue. 

Know that if you write vampires, you will have to work really hard to move beyond the shortcomings and the shorthand of so many other writers’ vampire interpretations. 

Nonsense lit is the only genre that captures that specific flavor of modern absurdity without trying to sand it down into a plot. When Alice meets a caterpillar who demands she recite poetry while high on mushrooms, it's not fantasy, it's Tuesday. Barthelme’s several stories composed entirely of fragmented conversations? That's not experimental fiction. That's my group chat.

My advice is this: you have to show your writing to people. 

The writing is concise, the mood is spooky, and I felt a genuine connection to the characters, both human and feline.

I don’t think I’ve learned anything.