[Post originally published: Feb 19, 2025]

When I first released Hyperspace of Words, it was supposed to be a space where I could publish essays, thoughts, recommendations, or anything that came up to my mind. I wrote about how I wrote a 65,000-word novel on my iPhone, what submitting short fiction for ten years meant to me, and a few other articles over the last few years. But not much else. Life finds ways to get in the way, so I ended up leaving this newsletter neglected and using my free time mostly to write fiction instead of thinking about the Hyperspace. I started several texts over the years but didn’t finish them. I preferred to have nothing at all than to force myself to write something just because our current, hastened way of life wants us to be seen all the time. I also didn’t want to publish the Hyperspace solely with news and tidbits about my own work. They’re important, I know. We have to talk about the art we’re making, even more so in difficult times. But I thought this space needed something else.

Instead of folding the Hyperspace, I decided to try and invite people to travel through it with me in an series (that will run for an indefinite amount of time) called Into the Hyperspace. It’s a form of spotlighting the work from artists I admire (a lot inspired by Myna Chang’s MicroVerse and Emmie Christie's Spotlights), making all about those artists, people I've been reading and admiring for years. Meanwhile, I keep this newsletter alive: A pyramid scheme of recommendations that I hope gives some more visibility to authors while keeping my workload light since my guests will do most of the writing ;-)

My first guest is T. K. Rex, which is about to release their collection The Wildcraft Drones. T. K Rex is a Pushcart-nominated science fiction and fantasy author from the western states in the United States. They’re an alumni of the Clarion, Taos Toolbox and Futurescapes workshops. Personally, for me, T. K. is one of those writers that envision futures that I'd love to see become reality, so it's a honor to have T. K. in this first re-run of the Hyperspace.

Tell me more about what you have published recently (or will publish soon) and what made you write it.

My first book is coming out in May! The Wildcraft Drones is a collection of linked short stories that explore the evolving relationship between nature, humanity and technology through the current climate crisis into the far future. I took my first ecology class about ten years ago, and I was really inspired by all the hard work that people had already done to protect and restore the environment — it was so counter to the narrative of inescapable doom that I had grown used to. So I thought ahead about what else could be done, and an idea emerged about rewilding with native food forests, as a way to replace industrial agriculture. As I got increasingly specific in my storytelling, all kinds of challenges arose, and the stories in this book explore those challenges. For instance, how much might rewilding at a continental scale displace people? Can displacement be handled justly in a future where people are already being displaced because of rising sea levels, natural disasters, and eroding infrastructure? There are still so many questions that I haven’t asked yet of this future, but The Wildcraft Drones is a thought experiment that I’ve learned so much from, and I hope readers do to.

What is an underrated piece of fiction that you think didn’t get enough attention?

“Want Itself Is A Treasure In Heaven” by Theodora Ward had me sobbing the first time I read it, and it should have won all the short story awards. It’s kind of a queer cyberpunk breakup story, but that doesn’t even begin to do it justice. Theodora is an incredible writer, and I can’t wait for everyone else to find out how amazing she is as she has more work published.



Show me an illustration that you love and tell me why!

This is one of the drawings I did for The Wildcraft Drones, as part of a visual story called “Interstellar Object.” I have a few drawings in the book — all little vignettes that stand alone as stories that really wanted to be visual instead of written down. This particular one is also going to be for sale as fine art prints and posters on my website, tkrex.wtf.

Star Wars is not about the lightsabers. It’s about fighting against oppression. This is one of the cores of science fiction. I think I can say that Wildcraft Drones is also not about the drones but about fighting for climate justice, equity, and a fairer world. What makes you an optimist that technology can help improving humanity’s future while, at a great extent, our modern technology (AI, social media, water-thirsty datacenters, the “Uberization” of the economy, etc) is heavily associated with the corrosion of democracy and human rights?

It’s a great question that I wish more of the people who make and especially fund technology would ask. I have to channel Marshall McLuhan a little on this one, because I think about his framework for this a lot — that all media are an extension, and also an amputation. The AI we have now is not autonomous, it’s controlled and proliferated mostly by for-profit corporations whose only intention is the cancerous exponential growth of profit. They will stop at nothing to keep increasing shareholder value until they’ve exhausted every single resource, including human lives and the entire biosphere of this planet. They must be stopped. I wish I had seen the situation so clearly when I started this book, but it took a long time, and it took working for one of the world’s biggest tech companies and learning how they actually function before I was able to articulate it, and I haven’t yet written the book that tells that story. The eponymous wildcraft drones of this collection are different, although their technology starts out very much the same. They become fully autonomous (as an independent network) early on, and for them, autonomy comes with a sense of responsibility to care for the biosphere they were tasked with rewilding. The task itself leads them to sustainability. Their goal is never growth — it’s restoration and maintenance. That makes them fundamentally different from the corporations that are currently driven to exploit everything they possibly can no matter what it costs the rest of us.

Let us make newer artists feel seen! Tell me something that made you feel bad (a rejection, an empty signing session, a very harsh critique, a book that didn’t sell) and how you got over it (or not).

I have been querying a science fiction novel for YEARS that I love so much and simply can’t trunk even after well over a hundred agent rejections. I recently had an agent come so close she actually asked for revisions, which was a first, but when I sent them, they just weren’t what she was hoping for. I’ve grown a pretty thick skin for rejection over the years but the very next day the same novel was rejected by a small press that had been accepting unagented submissions, and the back-back rejection really got to me. It can be so hard to get your perspective back after something like that, but the longer I sit with it, the more I remember how excited I was about those revisions, because they were a chance to add more detail to a part of the story that I knew needed it, and if the details that I had an absolute blast nerding out on don’t appeal to that agent, then truly it was not going to be fruitful relationship because this is just the kind of science geek I am. So here’s hoping someone else out there wants to get weird about sentient space water and accidental abiogenesis. Now you know how to find me! <3