New Zine: “Community is a Superpower”

I wrote a zine!

And it’s been published in the magnificent Uncanny Magazine!

It’s called Community is a Superpower, and features original art by the awesome Yorgos Cotronis (and a few raggedy pieces by meeee). You can read it on Uncanny, or you can download it for printing and distribution just like a real zine! Big big love to nonfiction editor Meg Elison, for acquiring it, and managing editor Monte Lin for helping wrangle it into reality.

Basically it’s me back on my bullsh*t about the power of connection and collaboration to change the world – IRL, and in stories.

Here’s the intro:

The Hero’s Journey is dead.

It has nothing further to teach us.

We’ve seen enough tales of brave boys ending evil empires with only a magic sword or light saber or assault rifle.

These stories have taken us down a toxic path where millions of angry people–mostly but not exclusively male–believe that the answer to injustice is furious solitary violence.

I’m not saying the Hero’s Journey is gone. On the contrary–it’s everywhere. I’m saying it’s dead. And every horror fan knows something can be dead but keep on killing people. Like zombies, these stories might be slow and stupid, but there are a lot of them, and they will fuck you up…