[DIGEST] Hi Ena, hyena

Who’s Ena? No idea. I just like how it sounds. Say Hi ena, hyena five times fast and fall slowly into a state of madness with me, won’t you?

No? That’s probably for the best, actually. Still, did you know hyenas would slaughter whole herds of zebras just for fun if they had their druthers? Big cats (save for leopards who hunt for the lolz) mostly kill a single animal and only when necessary. Not hyenas, though. They will kill anything they can as often as they can…even your precious Ena.

Wow, that took a dark turn.

Anyway, I have so many more great pictures that I have no idea when I’ll be finished sharing them. It will at least take me through the rest of the month and probably next month, too. This week I’m moving us from Tarangire to Ngorogoro crater. This was my favorite part of the whole trip, which is a hard fought crown because every part of this trip was exceptional. If Tarangire will be remembered for it’s swampy elephants, the crater will be remembered for it’s alpine beauty.

Mostly, I will remember that hyenas can eat almost anything because their stomachs are almost as acidic as battery acid. They love to lay in mud after they eat b/c their tummies get very hot from digesting, and, like, as somebody with GERDs, most days I want to just lay in mud after eating, too.

If you want to share how you are doing this week, then there are two ways to interact with this post.

1 - If you don’t want to say anything, or bristle at identifying yourself, then you can reply with this nifty poll.

2 - If you’re feeling very brave, then reply below and tell us how you are doing right now on a scale from 1-5.

I’m bummed my mother left this week after an awesome trip out here, and there was no Kesha to pump me up, so this week I’m settling back to a 3, which I think is the first time I’ve been over a 3 for two weeks in a row since I started doing these roundups.

Big news this week: On Tuesday I launched a new Kickstarter campaign for an awesome urban fantasy academy duology called The Wicked Witch Academy.

Are you in love with all things magic and witchy? Do you swoon for dragons? Did you love the Dragon Strife trilogy? Then you'll love the Wicked Witch Academy!

If that sounds cool to you, I hope you’ll check it out.

What I wrote on Substack: This week I wrote about how to build a substantial body of work without burning out, and how to do better than I did building a career.

A new chapter of Magic also dropped this week. Just one more chapter until the end of this part of the story.

New chapters are free, but paid subscribers can access the archives. You also get access to a bunch of free books and stories from my back catalog.

Upcoming article: On Wednesday, I’ll be releasing an article about how Substack fits into the future of publishing. Here’s a snippet.

I’ve been doing research on Substack since February, and have released a few articles on it already on Substack sections and audience growth. I have a couple of big posts about it coming up, too. This is the first one.

Next week: I’ll be making my seventh appearance at Comic-Con next week with the wonderful Jessica Maison of Wicked Tree Press. Don’t look for Wannabe Press in the list of exhibitors, though, because for some reason I’m labeled at Russell Nohelty.

Maybe because this year we’ve moved to an exhibitor table!

Instead of small press, you can find us at booth G-03.

It’s not far from my place at K-03 for years, but we’ve moved across the huge cavern of the eating area to the right of small press.

I’ve got a panel at 11am on Friday in room 4 called “The Antidote Trust: comics/cartoons at the core of creativity throughout all media”. It’s been on a few lists of must-see panels, which has been exciting to see.

I’ve also got a signing at the Kickstarter booth (#1632) on Thursday at 4pm!

We’ll be hosting a couple of signings, too. will be signing from 2-3pm on Thursday and Brandie June will be signing from 3-4pm on Friday/

Finally, we have an awesome SDCC exclusive collector card for you this year. It’s free for subscribers, so make sure to come hang out and say hi.

Roundup: If you still want more, then here’s some amazing articles I loved this week.

• wins the golden taco this week with hilarious takes on Threads, AI, and Prime Day. Congrats on winning a yearly subscription from me, and for putting out consistently great work deserving of some feting.

•  interviews me about writer stuff, interviews Howard Jacobson, and interviews Chris J. Rice.

•  neither had his cake nor ate it, ranks colors and shapes, and channels C.S. Lewis to learn about The Two Towers.

• digs into the best colors for buildings, pulls out a treasure trove of Nimona sketches and early drafts, and doesn’t know where she ends and her child begins.

• reviews a recently translated Swedish book about the medical and culture history of Autism, teachs not to forget forgiveness, and loves a good poop, in the name of science of course.

• is living in captivity, is living in dirt with , is living with menopause, and is living with the fact that the AI doubled humanity’s entire history of music production in one day.

•  takes a creative risk, shows us what books are really made of, learns to die in the name of photography, and has a breakthrough.

•  is an email ninja, and Jay Acunzo make meaning online, and explains how to say “memoir” without coming right out and saying it.

If you like what I’m doing around her and want to check out the archives, you can do that with a 7-day free trial, or simply go straight to being a paid subscriber. You also get access to one of my few mystery novels, My Father Didn’t Kill Himself. 

My Father Didn’t Kill Himself is an epistolary YA murder-mystery novel told all in blog posts. It deals with suicidal ideation, suicide, depression, grief, and the loss of innocence. If you like The Fault in Our Stars, All the Bright Place, and The Midnight Library, you might like this, too.

They say my father killed himself. I don't think so. He was my best friend. He was my rock. He would never take his own life.No. Somebody killed him. I'm sure of it. I just have to prove it. If I don't, we can't collect on his life insurance. We're already in too much debt. Without that money, we'll lose everything.He would never do that to us. I just know it, and I'll prove it, too, even if I lose everything in the process.

Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you can access the archive for free with a 7-day trial.