New Subscribers start here!
Sky in River, Kauai, Hawaii.
Leicaflex SL2, Leitz Summilux 50mm lens, film stock unknown. © Samuel Claiborne 1986
Hello new subscribers, followers, and curious passerby. I wanted to welcome you and to lay out the bones of my substack so that you may hopefully find what you want - whether you have a laser-focused interest in one subject, or you’re an eclectic polymath looking for whatever fate hands you.
NODing Out
The start of this Substack was my novel, NODding Out (coming out in 2026 in softcover), and it’s still the thing I’d love people to read the most.
It’s a literary speculative fiction alternative history novel.
Here’s the pitch:
“Someone’s hacking our minds for profit, Andy!”
There is a world-wide epidemic of a new disease, dubbed Non-Organic Dementia, or NOD, striking Africans and Asians exclusively. When someone ‘NODs Out’ they descend into helpless catatonia or violent uncontrolled rages, but once they die, autopsies find absolutely nothing wrong. The medical establishment is stumped and governments and populations around the world are panicking.
Andrew Braxton, a half black, half Jewish speech pathologist, engages client and ex junkie Manny Reyes to research the epidemic. Manny discovers the grim truth: The SUR Corporation has discovered that thought and memory exist outside the human brain, in an energetic, omnipresent morphic field.
They’ve developed ultra-fast, ultra-high-capacity, ultra-cheap storage devices that work by selectively reformatting human memory space for reuse as storage. And SUR is employing this technology against people of color in a scheme that is half money-making venture, half racist genocide.
Andrew and Manny travel the globe attempting to find the psychic masters and technologists needed to stop this 21st century pogrom, while SUR hunts them in turn.
Andrew eventually realizes he is the psychic he has been looking for and that he must stop running away from his gifts. He must also transcend his personal rage about loss of his girlfriend Nina Ohanyido to NOD, and his crippling self-doubt in order to lead the attack on SUR’s psychic brain trust. His efforts will either save what’s left of the world’s memory, or destroy all of humankind’s memories forever.
NODding Out: Matter (69K), is speculative fiction that explores the ethical quandary of devoted pacifism in the face of industrialized violence, and conjures a possible future “tyranny of empathy” that may make all forms of violence, from rape to torture to warfare, impossible - but at what cost?
One last note: most of the chapters now have accompanying essays, usually containing some aspect of memoir that resonates with the chapter. There were some more topical essays as well, but from now on, those will be deployed in the Essays etc. section.
Many chapters are also accompanied by original photographs.
For now, all of this content is free. That will change as I get closer to releasing the book in physical and Audible form.
Essays etc.
This is where topical essays on politics, the environment, gender and identity issues, and anything else that prompts an essay out of me reside.
I was a radio commentator on Northeast Public Radio for several years and have a secret yearning to be a paid bloviator ;-). This is as close as I can get at present.
All of this content is currently free.
Poetry
Poetry is my first love and I take it very seriously. You will not find Hallmark greeting card level treacle, experimental doggerel, or slam poetry posturing here. This is good old fashioned poetry, where the language and ideas matter more than the performance.
My heroes/heroines are people like W. B. Yeats, W. S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich, and Anne Sexton.
Personally, I really like listening to poets read their work, and soon, every poem will have a recording of me reading it as well. When I am enjoying other poets, I actually love to read along while listening to the author read aloud, as it seems to deepen the experience even more, which is why I often handed out sheaves of poems at readings, and soon I’ll be doing the equivalent here - adding my voice to the printed word.
Many of the poems are also accompanied by original photographs.
All of this content is free
Music
I’ve composed and performed music since my teens. I’ve played in punk and rock bands, electro-acoustic deeply experimental outfits, and also composed and recorded kinda-sorta-classical and ‘New Music’ works that defy easy definition.
Some of my work is available under my name, some under Things Fall Apart, and some under Loons inthe Monastery (yes, inthe is one word, don’t ask), on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Prime.
A lot of it is also available for free on YouTube.
I will post both previously published and unpublished music here.
However, even for previously published music that’s available for sale commercially, my paying subscribers (and, once in a while my non-paying ones) will have access to a downloadable MP3 of every piece of music I post here.
Expect the unexpected, from quiet, meditative improvised piano pieces to loud, rude rock and roll, to minimalism, and everything in between.
The Future
I may add a Photography section, which may include things like links to mugs, tee shirts and posters emblazoned with those photographs.
I may also bring back the Podcast. I may add Video output as well. I’ll let you know, here on this page, if changes happen.
YOU
You can help.
First of all, if you like a page, please share it! I think that just about every page has a nice big orange “Share” button on it now, and clicking that is the single biggest thing you could do for me and my work.
If you don’t wish to become a paid subscriber on Substack, you can still use the Buy Me a Coffee button to pay me as little as a dollar, one time, or once a month. Every little bit helps.
That said, your paid subscribership would be incredibly appreciated and I hope you’ll consider it. I’ve lowered the subscription rate to a rock bottom $5 per month, because I know people are strapped and I know many people like to support multiple creators.
But whatever type of type of subscriber you are or aren’t, and whatever type(s) of my work interest you, I thank you for reading and/or listening to and/or looking at my work.
