Feb 9 2026

Historic Patreon: An American Werewolf on the Titanic

Two films were released a week apart in late December 1997: “An American Werewolf in Paris” and “Titanic.” Since I was interested in both films, it gave me the opportunity for my own little Barbenheimer, and the result was this story.

For a while, I ran a website called “The Half-Million” that served much the same function as the Patreon – a repository for stories that had nowhere else to go. “An American Werewolf on the Titanic” was one of those stories. It lived there for a couple of years, until I dismantled the site in favor of actually trying to get stuff published.

Last year, while doing an extensive audit on nearly forty years of writing, I found the Half-Million on an old hard drive, complete and intact. With the Patreon up and running and begging for new material, the Half-Million was a potential treasure trove of content – if the 25-year-old stories were any good. Somehow, I got the giggles when I read the title “An American Werewolf on the Titanic,” and just had to give it a look.

The story was pretty much exactly what it says on the tin – a wealthy werewolf (an ancestor of Benedict Kindernacht, protagonist of the Amanda K stories) travels first-class on the Titanic with his assistant and partner Walter Moskowitz. Ship hits iceberg, and Kindernacht, unwilling to let his partner freeze in the cold waters of the Atlantic, transforms him as the ship goes down, the better that they might survive the tragedy. It didn’t have much to say about class and culture and having our passengers ride first-class seemed a way to avoid certain inconveniences, nothing more.

Clearly, the story was due for a rewrite.

Over the next several weeks, I wrote feverishly on an aging laptop with 26 open browser tabs and a ream of research, trying to create a Titanic that wasn’t a borrowed vision from a 1990s filmmaker. Since the movie, everyone’s an expert, so I knew I’d get letters if I had so much as a bolt out of place. I had blueprints and layouts, pictures and portraits, costumes and props. And I made the ship itself problematic to its two illicit passengers; to Miles, a symbol of the conquest of nature; to Walter, a symbol of the structures that destroyed his life. A story that begins as pastiche ends the only way a story about the Titanic can end.

The story is one of the longer ones I’ve posted to Patreon, the longest story at the $3 tier, and free-to-read until March 26. It all begins here, April 11, 1912 – with the ship in Cobh Harbor and two crates that do not contain marble statues.

Jan 26 2026

Portly Patreon – The Heavy Hunter

As a werewolf, Gabriel Blaine is a formidable attorney who has done great things to secure the future of his people. But the robust appetite of a werewolf fares poorly when tempted by the plentiful food of humans. At 385 pounds (174 kg), Gabriel’s weight is starting to affect his robust lycanthropic health, leaving him with no choice but to take a sabbatical and rejoin the Carver Gore Pack for the summer, where the food is considerably harder to catch. His return to his people is marked with high celebration.

But, at his weight and nearly sixty years old, Gabriel finds keeping up with the pack impossible, and the judgment of his companion uncomfortable. With long hot days turning into unexpected struggles, Gabriel is torn between returning to Ashton Mills in ignominious failure, or steeling himself against his own weaknesses and proving his continued value to his people.

Jan 19 2026

Progress Patreon: Thou Shalt Not… / The Way I Lived, Out Here With You

The three-part “Thou Shalt Not…” comes to an end, dependent on whether Harris Baker can let go of his vendetta. Astute readers might notice that the timeframe is a bit compressed; the events of the story really wouldn’t happen that quickly, but Baker’s bad decisions seem to hustle things along. Meanwhile, Simon is well on his way to discovering who he really is, and finding a family strong enough for him.

“The Way I Lived, Out Here With You” is this week’s free story, about a werewolf struggling to end a difficult period of mourning for the sake of a loved one. How do you move on without feeling like you’re abandoning those you’ve lost?

Jan 11 2026

Obstructive Patreon – Thou Shalt Not… Part 2

One of the things I found interesting in my re-read of this older story is that nothing Harris does inconveniences the Tribe in the slightest. Konac Namaroc isn’t part of the legal team defending his property, so this existential battle is going on entirely in the background. His people just live their lives as Harris throws money at the lawsuit.

But Harris was right about one thing. It isn’t safe for Simon among the Namaroc, and he will get hurt. Not through any fault of the Tribe, and not in the way anyone expects, but there are dangers the Pack hasn’t found – dangers that eventually find Simon.

Jan 5 2026

Obsessive Patreon: Thou Shalt Not…Part 1

“Thou Shalt Not…” was one of two stories I wrote for an anthology.

The story was supposed to center on Harris Baker’s obsession and jealousy with his neighbors, and how that obsession cost him everything. Instead, Simon’s gentler coming-of-age story turned out to be a much more pleasant place to be. The result is reflected in the story, with Harris’s scenes curt, abrupt, and hurried, while Simon’s scenes are lavish and detailed. Which would you rather do – spend an idle summer swimming in secluded rivers, or trying to steal your neighbor’s house?

Dec 28 2025

Protective Patreon: Weasels of the Apocalypse

One wonders why one needs so many different apocalypses, just as one wonders why one might need so many different kinds of werewolves. It’s a little like running a simulation; begin each new version with different parameters and see how your characters react to it. It’s possible all of these are the same apocalypse; there’s plenty of room on the planet, after all.

But “Weasels of the Apocalypse,” an excerpt from a longer novel of the same name, descends specifically from an unexplained event called the “Orange Sky.” Whatever the nature of that event, Anthros set themselves up as caretakers to the surviving humans, who could no longer care for themselves, and eventually inherited the world – with no interest in the works of humans, except to circulate a few comforts of choice. (There’s a scene in the longer story where Tarrant watches his first movie.)

It’d be nice to revisit this particular apocalypse again at some point and see how this trio of weasels are getting by at home in Winnepesauke. The story is available on “The Voice of Dog,” read aloud by Khaki, May 02, 2022.

Dec 21 2025

Parched Patreon: Hot

I wrote “Hot” in the dead of winter, coldest day of the year, with the wind howling outside the windows and the thermometer reading 8F. I was thinking about how my earlier complaining about the snow and cold would soon give way to complaining about the suffocating summer heat, giving the impression that one could never be truly satisfied with the weather.

The story went a long way toward cementing the Tribe as a running series; after writing it, I edited older stories to match its setting. The town of Ashton, Maine, a former mill village with a population of around 9,600, puts in its first appearance, 24 miles from Carver Cabin in Carver Gore, the territory of the Tribe and the 152 werewolves who call its dozen or so square miles of unincorporated land their home. The Tribe’s leader, called simply “The Master,” is a young visionary celebrated throughout the Pack for his problem-solving skills, though the people remain largely ungoverned. The Pack’s freedom is partly due to the legal maneuvering of Gabriel Blaine, a member of the Pack who passed the bar and created a non-profit trust granting the Pack stewardship of Carver Gore.

The werewolves of the Tribe are an indolent, goofy lot, though they do have the ability to lock-in when one of their own is in danger, and they have little tolerance for hostile humans. “Hot” asks a lot of its two protagonists: what do you do next when you’ve achieved your greatest dream? When does ennui turn into depression? How do you encourage someone else to take the reins of your life? And is the problem really just the heat, or is it something deeper? As Breakwater and Patrick stumble out of the woods on their fool’s quest to briefly join civilization, they’re confronted by their neglect of a part of themselves as beautiful as any beast.

Dec 8 2025

Post-pubescent Patreon: Path of the Hunters, Part Two

I feel like I want to come back to this world at some point. Two mighty tribes have been at war so long that there hasn’t been a battle in centuries, and their conflict has evolved into a rigid slate of rules and courtesies designed to prevent violence from flaring up and involving both tribes. Two fierce warriors of these opposing tribes meet in the ruins of an ancient city, and cautiously dance around each other, trading insults and shaking weapons to cement their antagonism. Waltz of the frenemies.

Torvik continues to struggle with growing up; he thinks it’s a stupid idea and doesn’t want to do it, not that he has a choice. His body has been making some bad decisions for him lately, and he’s feeling churlish and short. His easygoing Kahjah opponent pities him somewhat, which outrages him further, and he’s picked a fight he hasn’t a prayer of winning…

Dec 3 2025

Penalty Patreon: A Pocketful of Stars – Entrance of the Gladiators, Part 1

“Say, whatever happened to Chancellor Damon and Emperor Kellin after the Battle of the Caldera in ‘Found: One Apocalypse?'” said literally no one. But the original plot to the story that became this behemoth series was the entire Galaxy and all its various factions targeting the broken-down battleship for their own purposes, so it was time to wheel in another faction.

They’re pronounced “ZAY-tuss,” and that’s singular and plural. I suppose they’re a response to all the honor-before-reason barbarian species cooked up to keep science fiction moving. They look like seven-foot-tall anthropomorphic dragons, and they have a little gland at the base of their skulls that creates a hormone that makes them brutally competitive. Put two Zatus in a room together and they’ll beat each other up as soon as they get bored.

It doesn’t take long for Damon to realize that this civilization of death-before-dishonor barbarian lords is all hat and no cattle, and that when your civilization is death-before-dishonor, you end up generating a society of rules lawyers and backstabbers. Everyone aboard the Silver Star has great talent and abilities, none of which are valued by a society of skull-thumpers. So Damon is left to navigate this culture as best as he can. At least they’re honest with him.

Nov 30 2025

Post-Apocalyptic Patreon: Path of the Hunters, Part One

I was going over this story for about the third time before posting it to Patreon when a random neuron fired and I suddenly remembered a story I first read in high school called “By the Waters of Babylon,” by Stephen Vincent Benet. Suddenly, scenes from it sprang fully-formed in my mind, images I haven’t thought of in nearly forty years.

I’ve written a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction that uses an urban environment being crushed by encroaching nature, and in the abstract, “Path of the Hunters” is just another in the conga line. None of it was written with “By the Waters of Babylon” in mind, at least not consciously, but this story probably falls closest to it on the scale.