I always intended to write more than one Astartha story. When I finished working on “How Many Deaths Till Vengeance?” in June 2023, I didn’t waste much time conjuring new ideas. One of them involved Astartha and maybe a few friends pursuing a gatekeeping doctor into a strange underworld. If the first story was, in … Continue reading The Writing of “A Serpent from the Ash”

I began the first draft on the night of February 10, 2023. The necessary spark, a conversation with friends over dinner that evening, had lit the fire. Lying in bed close to midnight, I typed the first paragraph on my phone: The dust of the road clung to her skin, but what clung to her … Continue reading The Writing of “How Many Deaths Till Vengeance?”