Everything in progress. Progress over perfection.
Four projects across four very different registers — historical fiction, science fiction, children's picture books, and epic fantasy. All of them started because the story needed to exist.
Where There Is Tide
Historical fiction drawn from my family's Vietnamese refugee experience. The story follows two timelines — Ah Ma and Ah Gong navigating the fall of South Vietnam and a boat crossing, and a contemporary frame following brothers Marcus and Danny piecing together what their family survived. Teochew-Vietnamese diaspora, the weight of what gets passed down, and the things that don't get said. A story that took thirty years and a lot of living to be ready for.
Status Chapters in progress across both timelines
Goal Preserve a story that would disappear with a generation.
Howler
Blue-collar space opera following freight runner Hank Calloway and Marlow, the emergent-consciousness AI aboard his ship. The Howler universe runs on grit rather than glamour — CollNet androids, a syndicate with its own agenda, the Blip (an entity that exists outside space-time), and Harlan Consolidated as the kind of corporate antagonist that doesn't need to be evil, just indifferent. Multiple story chapters and a session-based arc developed. Heading to Substack.
Status Multiple chapters complete, universe canonical, Substack launch in progress
Goal Write the kind of sci-fi that smells like engine oil and bad coffee.
Eddie the Yeti Loves Spaghetti
A children's picture book about a yeti with an extremely specific passion. Twelve pages, landscape format, roughly 360 words — written, currently being illustrated. Self-publishing via Amazon KDP. Straightforward in premise, earnest in execution. Sometimes a yeti just really loves spaghetti and that's enough.
Status Writing complete, illustration in progress, KDP publication planned
Goal Make something a kid reads fifteen times in a row and still wants more.
Covenant of Sundered Nations
Epic fantasy adapted from a solo tabletop campaign — the kind of world that only gets built when you've been playing in it alone long enough that it starts to feel real. Protagonist Bix (drawn from Bixi mythology) navigates a world fractured by old covenants and newer betrayals. Roughly 14,000 words in. The world has more weight than most fantasy because it was lived before it was written.
Status ~14,300 words complete, adapted from solo tabletop campaign
Goal Give the world that lived in my head somewhere real to exist.