Throwback to my 05/30/26 post for Delilah Delilah, when this project was still a quiet seedling. It’s been growing in the background ever since, and I’m finally ready to share the next step. The Kickstarter goes live on 7/21, and I can’t wait to show you what’s been unfolding.
You can see the post here.
You can visit the Kickstarter now!
Happy Solstice, Dear Reader! For Summer Solstice this year, I decided to collect 31 stories that I wrote during a challenge one March. It was bonkers and creative and insane and FUN, and I figured you’d enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
You can visit our bookshop to check it out. It’s available from your favorite retailers, but I wanted to talk a minute about that. We are working with Curios, and I wanted to share a little bit about why.
First, what is Curios?
Curios is a direct to fan distribution platform for digital content. On Curios, the creator keeps 100% of any revenue earned, they can access their fans contact information, and they maintain the ownership and IP of their work at all times.
We’ve met the founder and chief technology guy, and they are super nice and committed to the artist and author communities. They started originally to help musicians keep more of their income. Did you know, for example, that an artist could post a song on Spotify, get thousands of downloads, and literally make less than a dollar? That’s criminal. So they set out to do something about it. They feel the same way about the indie author space, and that’s why we decided to work with them. Every time you purchase one of our books from them, we keep more of the money you spend and it doesn’t go to some faceless conglomerate or, worse, some billionaire who, frankly, doesn’t need your money.
We also use Mooberry Book Manager, a woman-owned small company that works directly with indie authors to build, you guessed it, bookshops on their websites. When we started with Curios we didn’t see an option to add them as a vendor and the owner of Mooberry worked with me directly, person-to-person, to make that available. What’s more, we were able to connect her with Greg at Curios, expanding the indie author universe. You can check out Mooberry here.
Okay, now to the important part of the announcement, the BOOK! (Right?)
It’s LIVE, y’all! I’m stoked.
See, here’s what happened. Clear back in 2008, the Absolute Write forums had a challenge – they’d issue a prompt in the morning, and you had to write a flash fiction story by the end of the day and post it on your blog.
So me? I decided to do it!
Thirty-one days, y’all.
Only one problem. I had no idea how to write flash fiction.
Good question.
Most writers agree that flash fiction is a short story, under say 1,500 words or so, with a beginning, middle, and end.
Being writers, we argue the details. But in general, that’s what it is.
For the challenge, the limit was no more than 1,000 words.
Have you MET me? I can’t tweet to save my life, and I am a friggin’ novelist, y’all.
But they say that the best way to learn is to do, so I do’d. (Rhymes with dude, see what I did there?) And the stories were posted on my blog.
For those of you playing the home game, 2008 is 18 years ago. Y’all, if my stories were a people, they could VOTE.
Wut.
So when people ask me, “What do you write?” and I’m all, “Check out my blog,” they are reasonably going to look at me with deer-in-the-headlights and say, “Um, Noony? WHERE on the blog?”
So I made a book.
Because that’s what writers do.
Want the link? Go forth and click it!
Rachel and I have a short story in the forthcoming anthology, All in on Love! This is a fun one. It’s the meet-cute moment between Caden and Mads, but from Mads‘ point of view!
Why is this fun?
Mads is a contract killer who lost his parents in a tornado when he was five. Trapped in the basement for three days before he was rescued, poor guy has trauma with a capital T.
He is also a crow shifter. And since shifters don’t get their animal form until puberty, his CROW is perfectly well-adjusted – and he has opinions, y’all. Their interactions are a stitch and a half.
Take a peek:
His crow wasn’t even listening. No, he was locked on the guy like he was a magnet.
Pretty! Pretty! Pretty!
He’s a fucking student!
Pretty One is like us.
No point arguing with his crow when he got like this.
See what I mean?
Well, if you want to see more, AND see some amazing stories by fantastic authors including our dear friend Tina Holland, then please visit and click on “Notify me on launch.” You’ll help our algorithm and you’ll get to read some amazing stories. Win-win!
That’s all for now, my little Wildlings. Remember: eat your vegetables, move your body, and for the love of Pete, READ SOMETHING FANATASTIC!
~hugs~
In the Foundlings’ world, not all magic is loud. Some of it moves like breath — a soft stirring of air that slips through open windows, rustles the edges of maps, and lifts the hair at the nape of the neck. The elders call it zephyr, though the word barely captures the way it feels.
Zephyr is the magic of subtle shifts. The magic that arrives before you realize anything has changed.
Zephyr is not a wind in the ordinary sense. It doesn’t follow weather patterns or seasons. It follows intention.
It moves toward:
Zephyr is the messenger magic — the one that carries hints, warnings, and invitations.
You can feel zephyr in certain places:
It’s the kind of magic that doesn’t push. It nudges.
Some Foundlings are more attuned to zephyr than others.
Aaron feels it first — a shift in the air, a prickle of awareness. Mads senses it in the way shadows lengthen, as if the world is holding its breath. Even Breck, who pretends not to believe in such subtleties, has been known to pause mid‑stride when the wind changes direction.
Zephyr doesn’t choose favorites. It simply goes where it’s needed.
Zephyr is the magic of:
It’s the reminder that magic doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it whispers.
Zephyr is the final letter of this cycle, but not the end of anything. It’s the soft shift that signals the next chapter, the next question, the next quiet unfolding.
It’s the magic that says: Pay attention. Something is moving.
Where in your life do you feel a subtle shift in the air — the kind that suggests something is about to change.
In the Foundlings’ world, magic doesn’t always arrive with light or sound. Sometimes it comes as a pull — a quiet ache beneath the sternum, a tug toward something not yet seen but already known. The elders call it yearning, though the word feels too small for what it truly is.
Yearning is the magic that moves before the feet do. It’s the compass that points toward the thing you didn’t know you were missing.
Yearning begins as a sensation: a flutter, a tightening, a warmth that gathers just behind the heart. It’s not painful, but it’s insistent — a reminder that something in the world is calling your name.
Some Foundlings feel it when they’re young. Others don’t feel it until much later, when the world has already carved its marks into them.
But when it comes, it’s unmistakable.
Yearning can be stirred by many things:
Sometimes the thing that calls is a person. Sometimes it’s a place. Sometimes it’s a truth you’re not ready to hold — not yet.
Some Foundlings carry yearning like a second heartbeat.
Aaron feels it when he stands at the edge of the Night Market, watching the lanterns sway. Mads feels it in the quiet hours, when the world is still and the wind shifts direction. Even Breck, who pretends he’s immune to such things, has been known to stare too long at the horizon.
Yearning doesn’t ask permission. It simply arrives.
Yearning is not a command. It’s an invitation.
It doesn’t say, Go. It says, Listen.
And when you do, the world rearranges itself — subtly, gently — until the next step becomes clear.
Yearning is the magic that leads you toward the life that’s waiting for you, even if you don’t yet know its shape.
Yearning is the thread that pulls the Foundlings forward:
It’s the soft ache of becoming. The quiet promise of what could be. The whisper that says, There is more for you than this.
Where in your life do you feel that quiet pull — the one that asks you to listen more closely.
There’s a particular kind of magic in the Foundlings’ world that doesn’t announce itself with sparks or storms. It’s quieter than that, older than that — a magic that lives in the spaces between people. The kind that arrives when a door opens, when a stranger is welcomed, when a hearth makes room for one more chair.
The Foundlings call it xenial magic: the enchantment of hospitality, of shared shelter, of choosing to make space for someone who wasn’t yours until the moment you said yes.
Xenial magic gathers at thresholds — doorways, gates, the edges of tents in the Night Market. It hums in the air when someone steps inside from the cold. It’s the warmth that rises from the floorboards when a guest crosses into a home that wasn’t expecting them but welcomes them anyway.
Some say the magic is strongest in places where many feet have crossed the same threshold. Others say it’s strongest when the person entering has nowhere else to go.
Both are true.
Xenial magic isn’t grand. It’s made of gestures:
These small acts shift the air. They say, You are safe here. And in the Foundlings’ world, safety is its own kind of spell.
Some people carry xenial magic without trying.
Aaron does — the way he always notices who’s cold, who’s hungry, who’s pretending not to be tired. Mads does — though he’d deny it, his quiet presence is its own invitation. Even Breck, with all his sharp edges, has a way of making space for those he calls his own.
But xenial magic isn’t limited to the familiar. It blooms brightest when extended to someone unexpected.
Xenial magic is reciprocal, though not always in the moment. A kindness offered becomes a thread in the weave of the world. A door opened becomes a door that will open again. A meal shared becomes a memory that warms more than one life.
In the Foundlings’ world, magic isn’t just power. It’s relationship.
Xenial magic is the enchantment of welcome — the spell that turns strangers into guests, guests into companions, companions into kin.
It’s the reminder that magic doesn’t always arrive with spectacle. Sometimes it arrives with a warm bowl, a soft blanket, a place to sit.
Sometimes the most powerful magic is simply this: Come in. You’re safe here.
There’s a moment in every Foundling’s life when their magic stops being something they manage and starts being something they inhabit. It’s subtle at first — a shift in posture, a widening of breath, a sense that the world has more room in it than it did the day before.
That moment is Wingspan.
Wingspan isn’t about literal wings (though some Foundlings have those too). It’s about the internal expansion that happens when someone who has spent years folding themselves small finally realizes they don’t have to anymore.
Foundlings grow sideways before they grow upward. Their magic stretches into the corners of their lives long before it rises into something visible. Wingspan is the point where all those quiet expansions finally connect.
It’s the moment when:
Wingspan is not a single event. It’s a threshold.
In the Foundlings world, magic is inseparable from the body. When a character’s wingspan grows, their body knows it first — shoulders loosening, breath deepening, gaze lifting. Even characters without physical wings feel the shift.
It’s the sensation of:
Wingspan is the opposite of hiding.
Every Foundling has a different relationship to space. Some were never given any. Some were punished for taking too much. Some learned to survive by shrinking.
So when their wingspan arrives, it’s not just magical — it’s emotional.
It’s the moment they stop surviving and start becoming.
Wingspan is the quiet declaration: “I am here. I am whole. I am not going back.”
In the Foundlings universe, magic is relational. When someone’s wingspan expands, the world shifts around them — allies notice, enemies react, and the land itself sometimes stirs.
Wingspan is a turning point not just for the character, but for the story.
It’s the beginning of the next arc.
Where in your own life have you felt your “wingspan” growing — even a little?
Veils are the thin places between what is seen and what is sensed — the soft, shifting layers that separate one truth from another. They’re not barriers so much as invitations. A veil doesn’t say no; it says not yet. It asks you to look again, to look differently, to look with more than your eyes.
Some veils are protective.
Some are deceptive.
Some are simply the natural shimmer between worlds.
A veil can be a feeling you can’t name, a memory you can almost touch, a moment that feels doubled — as if something else is happening just beneath the surface. Veils remind us that reality is not a single, solid thing. It’s layered. Textured. Alive.
And sometimes the veil is inside you — the part of yourself you’re not ready to reveal, even to your own reflection. The part that needs shadow before it can bear light. The part that knows timing is its own kind of magic.
Veils don’t hide the truth.
They prepare you for it.
Further Reading:
• D — Divination
• G — Glamour
• I — Invocation
• L — Lore
Underwings are the hidden places where magic shelters before it’s ready to be seen. The soft, shadowed spaces beneath what looks ordinary — a gesture, a word, a moment — where something truer waits with patient breath. Underwings are the parts of us that stay tucked away until the world feels safe enough to meet them.
Some underwings are protective.
Some are transformative.
Some are simply waiting for the right light.
When you sense a shift but can’t name it yet. When you know you’re changing, but the change hasn’t stepped fully into the open. Underwings are the magic of becoming — not the moment of emergence, but the quiet gathering before it.
They’re the places where we hold our tenderness, our power, our not‑yet‑selves. They’re the soft architecture of growth, the hidden scaffolding that keeps us from collapsing while we learn how to unfurl.
Further Reading:
• E — Echoes
• F — Fledglings
• J — Joining
• M — Magic
They’re the invisible lines we cross without realizing it — the shift in the air when we enter a space that isn’t entirely ours, or the quiet claiming that happens when we step into a place that is. Territories are emotional, energetic, instinctive. They’re drawn by memory, by longing, by the body’s subtle yes and unmistakable no.
Some territories are inherited. Some are carved out slowly, over years. Some appear the moment you recognize yourself in a landscape, a room, a person’s gaze. And some are temporary — a patch of sunlight on the floor, a corner of a café, a stretch of forest path that feels like it knows your name.
What once felt safe may become unfamiliar. What once felt unreachable may suddenly open. There are places we outgrow and places that outgrow us. There are territories we return to again and again, not because they’re perfect, but because they hold a version of us we’re not ready to let go of.
And then there are the territories we carry inside — the ones no one else can enter unless we invite them. The ones shaped by story, by desire, by the quiet work of becoming.
Further Reading:
Sanctuary isn’t a place so much as a shift — the moment something inside you loosens because it knows it’s safe to breathe again. It can happen in a room, yes, but it can also happen in a sentence, a memory, a person’s presence, or the quiet space you make inside your own chest.
Some sanctuaries are built.
Some are found.
Some are carried.
A sanctuary doesn’t have to be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be tidy. It doesn’t even have to be quiet. It only has to be honest. It has to be a place where you don’t have to brace yourself. A place where the world stops pressing in and starts opening out.
Sanctuary is the threshold where you stop performing and start returning. It’s the moment you realize you’re not being watched, measured, or judged. It’s the soft territory where your inner world can unfold without flinching.
And sometimes sanctuary is simply the knowledge that you can leave and come back as many times as you need.
Further Reading:
• B — Bookshops
• H — Hearth
• K — Kinship
• L — Lore
