Josh Sutphin

August Updates and Links I genuinely don’t understand how it’s the middle of August already.

July Updates and Links This month, I made a few long-overdue updates to the website to better feature my publishing and writing work, and I finally saw my writing group for the first time since, I don’t know, March?

They say the stolen rose blooms best.

Princess Cyrelle has always been faithful and true to her family, country, and Goddess.

Dr.

Living in Survival Mode I feel like I’ve been living in survival mode lately. 😫 I’m busy with Shiraki Press of course, but we also have a toddler who’s on the cusp of turning three and is in his “dismantle the entire house every single day” phase; plus we…

AI Blog Question Challenge Rishabh P.

New Release: The Color of Time Our third publication for Shiraki Press launched today: The Color of Time by Millie Abecassis.

There’s A Joke About Entrepreneurs...

My Brain Is Scrambled Eggs How am I doing another monthly update already, and how am I doing it late again?!

New Release: Wine for Roses Our second publication for Shiraki Press launched today: Wine for Roses by Emily O’Malley Liu.

We Launched A Book!

New Release: Accelerated Growth Environment Our first publication for Shiraki Press launched today: the wonderful eco-thriller Accelerated Growth Environment by Lauren C.

Review: The Fisherman All the same, those details.

Rainforest Writers Retreat 2026 In late February I attended the Rainforest Writers Retreat, hosted at the Rainforest Resort Village at Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

So Much Publishing Work 2026 sure started off with a bang... so much so that I’m half a month late on my monthly update. 😭 We had a bunch of Shiraki Press deadlines hit during the first six weeks of the year, along with some new marketing opportunities th…

Doing It Scared I’ve spent a huge amount of time since the start of 2026 working on book design for Shiraki Press, and while I’m immensely proud of these results, it’s also one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.

Joy, Angst, and Reconnection December was a weird month.

Consolidating My Platform I started Horror × Hope at the beginning of October to be an email newsletter and social media brand for sharing my horror and hopepunk fiction.

Our Year of Reconnection Photo by Frans van Heerden It’s 2026, and we’ve reached a breaking point.

Review: Snake-Eater It was profoundly absurd that being the assistant manager at a deli would prepare you to fight a god.

Year in Review: 2025 The older I get, the more I feel like the winter solstice is the true beginning of the new year.

New Release: The Gilded King My new poem The Gilded King is out!

New Stories and Reviews It’s been a busy month of writing and publishing.

New Release: We Are All Terrorists Now My new story We Are All Terrorists Now is out!

Review: It Was Her House First When it comes to things you care about, you don’t high-tail it.

New Release: When the Black Wind Blows My new story When the Black Wind Blows is out!

Review: The Starving Saints “What can be worse than what we are driven to, when all else is lost?

Review: Magica Riot If you ask me, I say family’s a thing you pick, like how you pick the way you wanna be seen, y’know?

Affinity Just One-Upped Adobe So Hard Today, Affinity announced a new version of their popular art suite—which includes pixel and vector image editing and desktop publishing tools comparable to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign—and they made a hu…

New Fiction Coming Soon!

Review: The Possession of Alba Díaz She caught his kiss between her teeth and returned it stripped of chastity.

Out On Submission The summer heat has broken, the rains have returned, and Halloween is at our doorstep.

Seattle Worldcon I had hoped to get a new short story out in August, but there was too much else going on and I wasn’t able to finish my edits in time.

The Hornet Apocalypse In the middle of July, we took the kids down to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma.

New Release: Witness I briefly lived in a little red brick house near Salt Lake City.

Summer Vacation I recently had to physically break into my own home office because the battery in the smart lock on the door died without warning.

New Fiction Last month, Brianne and I both reoriented more of our energy away from our stubbornly fruitless hunt for tech jobs.

New Release: Tribute I spent most of the last year in a speculative fiction course at Hugo House, taught by Nisi Shawl.

Burnout is Grief I got severely burned out in my previous career, twice.

Ownership is the Whole Ballgame I invested 20 years into game dev.

Tech Collapse I’ve been searching for game dev work since December.

Introducing Shiraki Press While using my sabbatical to explore a pivot into writing as a profession, I decided self publishing made the most sense for me, and that necessitated a deep dive into what it would take to set up a functional publishing pipeline.

Launching Shiraki Press I’m officially done with sabbatical, but I’m going to keep doing these monthly updates—for a while, at least—because they turn out to be useful milestones for my own accountability and excellent reminders of what I’ve actually acco…

Ending Sabbatical I’m starting to transition out of sabbatical mode and back into focused work mode.

Sabbatical Update 6: The Struggle Continues January felt like a very dynamic month.

Sabbatical Update 5: Happy New Year?

Sabbatical Update 4: Unrelenting Calamity When I started this sabbatical, I had a primary goal to develop a consistent creative practice, with a focus on storytelling and linear media.

Sabbatical Update 3: Secondary Trauma Another month down, another set of challenges endured.

Sabbatical Update 2: Workshopping and Habit Stacking Last month I talked about our struggle to exit the vacation mindset when we meant to.