So, first off, I’ll start with this week. Carlos and I are running a workshop—”Playful Storytelling: Fresh Ideas from Other Genres”—on Thursday with the fine people at Meet Your Apex, an offshoot of Apex Magazine.
The code DOON10 will get you $10 off the registration for live or recording-only, if you’re interested. Find us at reachyourapex.com/playful.
Coupon for our “Playful Storytelling” workshop.
The description is thus:
No matter what genre you’re writing, one of the hardest things to do is to come up with ideas that editors haven’t seen a thousand times before, written with language galvanized by verve, novelty, and identity. Join award-winning authorsCarlos Hernandez and C. S. E. Cooney as they explore writing in different genres through exercises that will show you the transferable skills you already have while giving you delightful new tools to add to your repertoire.
C.S.E. and Carlos will cover forms you may never have tried, such as game writing and comic book writing. Even if you never intend to work within these forms, experimenting with different genres will give you fresh perspectives on your writing and creative new ways to re-envision it.
In this class, you’ll get an overview of different genres and conventions, and learn about the underlying skills that connect them all. You’ll engage in exercises that:
invigorate your language on the sentence level
center solid worldbuilding
experiment with different genre structures
Claire and Carlos have over 50 years combined experience in fiction, poetry, comics, game writing, and drama. They have won awards for their writing and have published with major publishing houses. They’re also very different writers from each other. This unique dual perspective provides a wide panoply of ideas applicable to your own writing practices.
You’ll leave this workshop inspired, brimming with ideas, and with the spirt of play that is bound to feed your creative self.
DATE: August 14, 2025 – Thursday
TIME: 1PM ET | 12PM CT | 11AM MT | 10AM PT | 17:00 UTC
I also started a different newsletter, what was it, a week ago? Two weeks ago? But I never finished it.
I was going to tell you all about how our summer con circuit went. I’ll attempt a quick summary now.
We attended the Origins Game Fair, CONvergence (where I was a Guest of Honor!!!), CONfluence (where we were MUSICAL guests, in our band-persona of “Brimstone Rhine”), and GenCon.
C. S. E. Cooney at CONvergence 2025, Minneapolis, MN
Highlights of Origins? I got to sell my books, talk to a lot of readers, but my favoritewas a young person named Trinity, maybe 11 or 12 years old, who had an imagination as big as the sea, and who stood at my table for two hours telling me about sirens and mermaids. She came to one of our panels on Worldbuilding and asked the most interested questions. I was so glad to have met her!
Highlights of CONvergence? SO MANY! Everything!
My mama flew out for that one, as did my friends Patty Templeton and Brett Massé. My friend Sara Logan, who is local, was also there! And darling Carlos. So I felt surrounded with community.
Also? The CONvergence volunteer staff is the number one staff of anystaff anywhere, and my handler Kyle Dekker was a dream of care and solicitude. He was also a great moderator for all my “solo” panels.
Also! Tina Connolly and Dr. Mary Crowell came, and we gave our first public review of some of our “The Devil and Lady Midnight” musical theatre podcast!
(Left to right: C. S. E. Cooney, Dr. Mary Crowell, and Tina Connolly onstage at CONvergence 2025 for the “The Devil and Lady Midnight” concert.
GenCon—where our TTRPG, Negocios Infernales—had its debut! People who pre-ordered through the store have already gotten their games, and Outland is working on fulfillment for our Kickstarter backers. We found five of our backers at GenCon and gave them their games and neoprene maps!
C. S. E. Cooney and Negocios Infernales backer Kathy Brown, making the game fulfillment at GenCon 2025
All copies of our game sold out. Next time, we’ll bring more. Studio 2 Publishing is Outland Entertainment’s distributor, and they were amazing!
Carlos ran three Negocios Infernales games at GenCon through Games on Demand, who were also wonderful, as usual. Games on Demand is an “open gaming event” organization that facilitates finding players for indie games at conventions such as Origins, GenCon, Pax Unplugged, and many more.
“Every game begins unwon,” as the Deck of Destiny likes to say. This is a Negocios Infernales table before the game is played.
I got to see my beautiful mama several times (she flew out for TWO of my cons!) And my brother Jeremy, who sang with us at CONfluence. And my dad and stepmom, whom we visited in Chicago on our way home. And my brother, sister-in-law, and niece and nephews in Pittsburgh, though we did that masked, outside, and from a distance, due to a minor illness on the poor kiddos’ part.
The band Brimstone Rhine at CONfluence 2025, Pittsburgh PA. Left to right: Jeremy Cooney on vocal and guitar, C. S. E. Cooney on vocals, and Carlos Hernandez on ukulele and cajon.
This is day four of being back, day two without houseguests, and the first day I get to sit down and write. So I’m here.
And now I will go to my fiction. More soon for you, I hope!
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon/evening, from 4 PM to 8 PM, Carlos and I will be running NEGOCIOS INFERNALES at Games on Demand. That’s in the Westin Grand Ballroom 3, on the Second Floor.
If Carlos or I are in a panel at that hour, the other of us will start the game, but we’ll both join in as soon as we can.
NEGOCIOS INFERNALES will be AVAILABLE to purchase at Gen Con! Studio 2 will be distributing the game in HALL H, at Booth 1929-2029.
Claire’s Schedule
Thursday
Remembering Howard Andrew Jones, Thursday, 11 AM
Book Signing and Meet & Greet, 2 PM C. S. E. Cooney, Richard Dansky, and Shveta Thakrar
For the Loving of the (Writing) Game, Thursday 5 PM
Friday
Coffee Klatch, 11 AM With C. S. E. Cooney and Johannah Simon
Infernal Salon Writers Workshop, 1 PM
Saturday
Reading Aloud for the Writer or Poet, 1 PM
The Joys of Speculative Poetry, 3 PM
Carlos’s Schedule
Thursday
Remembering Howard Andrew Jones, Thursday, 11 AM Featuring Bryan Young, C. S. E. Cooney, Carlos Hernandez, Chris A. Jackson, Erik Scott deBie, Erin M Evans, Gregory A Wilson, Sean C W Korsgaard, Seth Lindberg
THIS Friday, June 27th, 8-10 PM Eastern, is our poetry reading: POETS FOR WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN.
Streaming live on twitch.tv/csecooney
Our goal is to raise $500 for World Central Kitchen! To my delight and gratitude, we’re already halfway there, and we haven’t even begun dropping verse!
An Infernal Salon is a fun, low-stakes writing workshop. Participants are given spooky card prompts, and then we set a timer for 25 minutes. Everyone writes something (or draws! Or composes!). Then everyone who’s comfortable with it shares their infernally-inspired works!
Saturday 2-2:50 PM, Brimstone Rhine Concert
With Carlos Hernandez and Jeremy Cooney
Saturday 5 pm: Writing SF and Fantasy Poetry [Commonwealth East]
Mary Soon Lee, Herb Kauderer, Mary Turzillo, C.S.E. Cooney
Logo for C. S. E. Cooney’s Twitch channel created by Brett Massé
Dear Community,
Recently, my friend Liz Pino Sparks and I slid into our DMs to share some of our local joys and goings on, and also to lament the world horrors we all have been witnessing. We wanted, so badly to do something.
So we decided to host a night of poets reading their work: to raise our spirits, and more: to raise awareness and funds for World Central Kitchen, which does such great and good and beautiful work in communities “impacted by natural disasters and humanitarian crises.”
We named a night: Friday, June 27th, from 8 PM to 10 PM, Eastern. (7 PM-9 CENTRAL, 6 PM-8 Mountain, 5 PM-7 Pacific.)
I’ve known Liz and their spouse Ethan since our high school days at Arizona School for the Arts. Ethan and Liz know many poets from their years of art and education. I, too, know many poets–mainly speculative ones!–and we reached out broadly to ask them to read with us.
I’m so happy to be meeting some of these wonderful people for the first time on Friday, June 27th, and so excited to introduce my poet friends to Liz and Ethan and their poet friends!
And I am so, so fiercely glad that we are setting a goal: to raise $500 for World Central Kitchen that night.
I set up a page–https://donate.wck.org/poetsforwck–since WCK is so kind and made it so easy, both through their website, and a lovely responsive email to my query.
Look! We’re already a 10th of our way to our goal!
We will stream this event live on my twitch channel: twitch.tv/csecooney, and you don’t need a twitch account to stream us. But! If you want to join the chat, and applause in words and emojis, and type out all your favorite lines as you hear them (I love doing this), please grab yourself a twitch handle, and join us!
And now, I am pleased to introduce you to our poets!
Erik Amundsen is an author and poet whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Apex, and Jabberwocky. He has been removed from display for being biologically improbable or terrifying to children.
Allisa Cherry, author of An Exodus of Sparks and the 2024 Wheelbarrow Books poetry prize winner, has work in journals such as EcoTheo, The McNeese Review, TriQuarterly, and The Penn Review. Based in Portland, she teaches classes and workshops for immigrants and refugees and is a poetry editor at West Trade Review.”
Drs. Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman are folklorists, teachers, and writers who co-founded The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic, where they teach creative souls how to re-enchant their lives through folklore and fairy tales. They also write an absurd amount of poetry together, which you can read in Uncanny, Star*Line, Clarion, and many others.
Gerald L. Coleman is a philosopher, theologian, poet, Science Fiction & Fantasy author, Co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, and a Fellow at the Black Earth institute. His poetry and essay collections include Nappy Metaphysic, On the Black Hand Side, and the forthcoming Incendiary. His novels include the epic fantasy series, The Three Gifts. Follow his Patreon and his website. Patreon: https://geraldcoleman.com/patreon-and-projects Website: https://geraldcoleman.com/
C. S. E. Cooney is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author whose books include Saint Death’s Daughter, Saint Death’s Herald, Dark Breakers, Desdemona and the Deep, The Twice-Drowned Saint, and Bone Swans: Stories. Her Rhysling Award-winning poem is found in her poetry collection How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes. She is also game designer, an audiobook narrator, and the singer-songwriter Brimstone Rhine. Find her on social media via her LinkTree https://linktr.ee/csecooney.
Jennifer Crow‘s poetry and prose have been published in a wide range of venues over the past quarter-century. Her poems have appeared in Analog, where two were finalists for the AnLab reader awards; Asimov’s Science Fiction, Uncanny Magazine, and others. Curious readers can learn more about her and her work on Patreon, where she posts under “Poetry from a Crow.” Find here: https://www.patreon.com/c/poetrycrow/posts
McKenna Deen (she/her/hers) is the Editor-in-Chief of boats against the current, a poetry magazine that highlights the voices of women, LGBTQ writers, and poets from underrepresented backgrounds. Her chapbook Ever Yours, Vincent — about the life and art of Vincent van Gogh — was published by dancing girl press. Her poems have been published in several journals and poetry magazines, including The Poet, The Los Angeles Review, and Ekphrastic Review, among others. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two cats and loves photography, fresh flowers, and wine.
Adam Deutsch is the author of a full-length collection, Every Transmission (Fernwood Press). He has work recently in Poetry International, Thrush, Puerto Del Sol, Alchemy, Broken Lens Journal, and South Dakota Review, and has a chapbook called Carry On (Elegies). He’s a Professor in the English Department at Grossmont College and is the publisher of Cooper Dillon Books. He lives with his spouse and child in San Diego, CA. AdamDeutsch.com
Gwynne Garfinkle lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of a novel (Can’t Find My Way Home) and two collections (Sinking, Singing and People Change), all published by Aqueduct Press. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in such publications as Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Uncanny, and Escape Pod.
Tina Hyland holds a Ph.D. in Literature, an MFA in writing and teaches at the Culture, Art & Technology program at UCSD.
Grant Leuning is a poet and visual artist. He is the author of two books of poetry, I Don’t Want to Die in the Ocean and Little Bird, among other things.
Caitlyn Paxson is a writer, performer, and historical interpreter. She has worked as an artistic director of storytelling performances, a book reviewer for NPR Books and Quill & Quire, a fiber arts consultant, a legal document and poetry transcriber, a 19th century jack of all trades, and a shepherdess. She currently interprets haunted historic house museums on Prince Edward Island and moonlights as a fake spirit medium. Her debut novel, A Widow’s Charm, is forthcoming from Del Rey, Doubleday Canada, and Quercus Books in 2026. You can also find her on Instagram or join her monthly newsletter, Book & Bramble.
Silvatiicus Riddle (He/They) is a 4x Rhysling-nominated Dark Fantasy/Speculative Fiction Writer & Poet haunting the bones of an old amusement park on the edge of New York City. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Enchanted Living, Eternal Haunted Summer, Spectral Realms, and Creepy Podcast, among others. He combats despair and entropy with his newsletter, The Goblin’s Reliquary. For all available works, please visit: http://linktr.ee/silvatiicusriddle
Julia Rios (they/them) is a queer, Latinx writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Latin American Literature Today, Lightspeed, and Goblin Fruit, among other places. Their editing work has won multiple awards including the Hugo Award. They’ve narrated stories for Escape Pod, Podcastle, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. Find out more at juliarios.com.
David Sklar is thrilled to have survived this long but isn’t sure what to do next. His work has appeared in some journals you’ve heard of, some journals you haven’t, and some that might somehow be both. You can learn more about David at http://davidsklar.blue
Ethan W. Sparks is a graduate of the UCSD writer’s graduate program, a graduate of the USC Rossier School of Education, and a public school teacher practicing inclusive and activist methodologies of teaching. They are a father of five, a published poet and musician, and a survivor of homelessness spanning the cityscapes of Los Angeles, CA, Cleveland, OH, and Phoenix, AZ. Their writing focuses on the human diasporic moment of separation from safety in personal and collective apocalypses, on the injection of love as decolonizing affect into education, and on the personal growth that surviving traumas inspires. Ethan’s work has been featured in The Allegheny Review, UCSD’s New Writer’s Series, Now That’s What I Call Poetry reading series, Amor Forense: birds in shorts city, una antologia de cuerpos escribiendo en san diego, and is the author of the chapbook, How to Home from Boats Against the Current magazine.
Liz Pino Sparks is a cross-genre writer, legal scholar, teacher, musician under the name Liz Capra, and a parent of five. They have made homes in: Post Soviet Russia, next to the steel mills of the Cuyahoga River, in the Sonoran Desert, and next to the Pacific Ocean. Liz is a proud grandchild of an Isleta Pueblo grandmother, a Sicilian immigrant grandmother, and generations of New Mexican Rancheros. They hold an MFA from San Diego State University, a JD from CWRU School of Law, and an LLM from CSU. Find their recent collection Generic American Household at Boats Against the Current.
Adam Stutz is a neurodivergent poet whose work has appeared in various print and online publications including The Equalizer: Second Series, White Stag, The Cultural Society, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Prelude, Be About It, Deluge, Dum Dum Zine, The Pinch, Where is the River, Dream Pop, Cover, and Ghost Proposal. He is the author of the chapbook Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017) and The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018). He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
Hanna Tawater is the author of the poetry collections VOID (White Stag, 2022) and Reptilia (Ayahuasca, 2018). She completed her MFA in writing with focus on interdisciplinary poetry at UC San Diego, where she now teaches. Her work has appeared in various publications, both online and in print. She lives in San Diego with entirely too many cats.
Jessica P. Wick is a writer, poet, and editor. She co-founded Goblin Fruit with Amal El-Mohtar, a quarterly e-zine of fantastical poetry, and is a passionate advocate for the reading aloud of poetry and fiction. Her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling Award and received honorable mentions in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies. Her short fiction can be found scattered across the internet, and her experience as an editor runs the gamut, from full-length novels to short fiction, poetry collections to magazine articles, academic papers to audio works. She also reviews books for NPR. She currently lives in Westerly, Rhode Island.
Carlos and I had a wonderful, wonderful time talking about poetry, books, and games with Mary Soon Lee.
The Twitch stream of our chat will be available for the next few weeks, and hopefully I’ll remember to download this one to YouTube for, like, you know, perpetuity!
Watch and listen here, if you need some company on a walk, or when doing dishes, or folding laundry. All the little things.
It’s a fun, low-stakes writing workshop, high on community, ix-nay on the essure-pray. Participants are given spooky card prompts, and then we set a timer for 25 minutes. Everyone writes something (or draws! Or composes!). Then everyone who’s comfortable with it shares their infernally-inspired works!
If you want us to run a night of artistic writing (or music, or poetry, or art) prompts for you and your friends, your writing or gaming groups, your library, or your classroom (18+), check out this perk on the Locus Magazine fundraiser!
So, Tina Connolly and Dr. Mary Crowell and I have been for several years now collaborating (at a stately pace) on a 6-episode musical theatre podcast, and sometimes Mary posts pieces to her Patreon.
One of the things we love is that every episode stars a different character (there are six characters in all), and though the theme song is always the same tune, its instrumentals and sometimes its language changes depending on which character is starring in that episode. (One episode is just people meowing the theme in unison.)
This one belongs to Mavis Day’s (Lady Midnight herself) episode, and it’s an open post, free to listen!
C.S.E. Cooney 