Reflections on art, process,
memory, and the long road
between drafts.
Writing Process
Murder in the Shadows: Why
Poe and Berlioz Make Perfect
Partners
Both men were outsiders, romantics, obsessives. Both transformed personal anguish into revolutionary art. Putting them together in 1830 Paris—solving murders while the seeds of detective fiction take root—felt inevitable.
Historical Research
From Symphony to Stage:
The Berlioz-Smithson Love
Story
The true story behind The Dream Was Too Beautiful—how an Irish actress’s Ophelia drove a French composer to madness, genius, and one of music’s most radical symphonies.
Craft & Mythology
The Morrigan's Game:
Finding Celtic Gods in
Modern Cork
The Celtic gods never left Ireland. They’re only waiting in the shadows. Notes on weaving ancient mythology into contemporary fantasy.
Character Inspiration
Kurt Vonnegut said everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. That’s not a flaw in the human character. That’s the fix. Meet the janitor who maintains reality.
Character Inspiration
The accent, the attitude, the stubborn insistence that it’s the real capital of Ireland. Why a city that refuses to take anything seriously became the center of the cosmos.
Craft & Mythology
The Headless Horseman terrifies because he has no head. The Irish dullahan terrifies because he does—he carries it. What happens when the Devil offers him a deal?
Craft & Mythology
The Celtic gods never left Ireland. They’re only waiting in the shadows. Notes on weaving ancient mythology into contemporary fantasy.
Historical Research
Eleven real Poe stories are hiding inside the novel, woven into the Paris of 1830. A reader’s guide to the Easter eggs—and the game of finding them.
Writing Process
I told my friends I wanted to write an opera. One of them said, “Just buy the book.” I took that as a challenge. Two operas, two novels, and a trilogy later, I still haven’t bought the book.