About Castles in the Sky

Castle in the Sky is a metaphor for a new idea so powerful that it changes the way we see the world.

Castles in the Sky newsletter is a weekly dose of truth, beauty, and humor to combat intellectual loneliness and existential boredom. Occasionally, you will also receive book reviews, short stories, and other essays.

I am a bookseller by birth, professor by choice, and writer by vocation. I spend as much time as possible with my wife and daughter. Any free moment between those is spent daydreaming and reading books. Here are two lists that will give you a decent idea of what this Substack is all about.

Five most popular pieces of writing

• A Requiem for Sean in D Minor: This is an essay about friendship, shame, addiction, helping the ones we love, and living with complex regrets. (TW: addiction, suicide)

• A Dirge for Eastern Redwoods: A meditation on family and how who came before us shapes who we are, told through the lens of an homage to the extinct tree that built America.

• The Masculine Urge to Visit a Psychic Giraffe in Khartoum: An original short story in the magical realism genre inspired by a Twitter bot.

• Making, Not Finding, Your Way: Review of The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd: Are we our jobs? Paul Millerd thinks not and I'm inclined to agree--but where does this leave us in how we define ourselves, successes, failures, worth, and all?

• What Becoming a Father Taught Me About Self Care: A reflection on how learning to love a child made me re-cast my own role in my life as someone who needs to "take care of himself."

Six sections of the Substack

• Newsletter: Where I share (mostly weekly) updates on what I’m writing, what’s going on in my life, and what’s inspiring me or catching my attention.

• Essays and Memoirs: Where I explore ideas and tell personal stories.

• Fiction: Where I publish short stories and novel chapters.

• Review & Commentary: Where I give thoughts on books, movies, essays, and other art (and the artists who make it).

• Experiments & Meta: Where I put anything that doesn’t fit neatly into the categories above, and also where I put “directories,” whenever I have a series of related posts.

• Meta & On Writing: Where I discuss this Substack and the craft of writing, as well as where I put “stubs” or links to my writing published elswhere.

Please send me an email if you have any questions or comments about any stories. I love to get reader feedback.