Dear reader!

It’s been a while. My long absence was merely from blogging, but not from writing. At some point it started to feel useless to write about US politics, and then COVID hit, and, like many, I retreated into a kind of mental seclusion, driven by horror and hopelessness. But I kept writing –– mostly fiction. First short stories, then a novel, then another one.

The first novel is in the drawer, but as for the second one, ‘The Hermit,” I will be publishing it on my Substack (katyag.substack.com) in serialized form starting in January. I’ve done all the necessary rituals to get to this point and I think it’s the best publishing option for me. Book agents want either a trauma narrative, or YA romance, or an ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ and I just don’t write that. Substack allows for flexibility and artistic freedom, and I can still publish the book later in either digital or physical form. I retain all the rights.

“The Hermit” is about an aging finance bro in the grips of a midlife crisis. Granted, not a breakthrough narrative, but I wanted to tell the old story in a new way. What is the Jungian shadow of a bond trader? What’s behind his persona, his public mask? Neither Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street), nor Michael Lewis (Liar’s Poker, The Big Short) bother themselves with that hidden but consequential feature of a man of action. Read more about the novel here: https://katyag.substack.com/p/andy-sylvain-a-man-of-the-woods

Believe it or not, this illustration above is mine. I haven’t drawn anything since I was, maybe, 13. But I was looking for illustrators and had trouble finding someone who would understand my vision and who would agree to commit to produce about 25 drawings (one for each chapter), so I said ‘fuck it, I’ll do it myself.’ I might not be able to illustrate all the chapters, but there will be cool pics going forward.

So check out my Substack (and subscribe!). There are some recent pieces on crypto: https://katyag.substack.com/p/crypto-and-trustless-society; on destructive search for relevance: https://katyag.substack.com/p/relevance-through-destruction; and other current events stuff.