How discovering I have aphantasia has changed the way I see the world, my work, and the power of the mind — My name is Casey Lawrence, and I am a writer with aphantasia. From the prefix a- meaning “without,” and the Greek root word phantasia, meaning “imagination,” aphantasia describes people who lack the ability to produce mental images. When I close my eyes, I see static — not pictures. Until I…

A weird story told in clichés — This story was written to fulfill the challenge set by Willow Dickerson: “[W]rite in such a way that [you] fool people (or maybe even AI) into thinking [your story] was written by a program.” I have given it my best shot, so here is a story written using absolutely no…

“AI Made Me Do It” Writing Prompts Part 8 — A red flag is a warning sign of a potentially concerning behavior or personality trait; for relationships, they often indicate underlying problems such as trust issues, power imbalances, or lack of emotional awareness. For writers, red flags can serve as starting points for creating intriguing characters with dark secrets, conflicted…

With a monetary prize for the best story — Greetings reviewers! Welcome to Reviewsday Tuesday, the publication that posts reviews of all kinds. Books, movies, TV shows, people, places, things, even words in the English dictionary — you name it, you can review it. For the first time ever, I’ve decided to offer some incentive to publish with us…

The Legend of Zelda just got a whole lot bigger — Like all my fellow gamer-nerd brethren, I’ve been playing the new Legend of Zelda Switch game, Tears of the Kingdom, pretty much nonstop since it arrived a couple weeks ago. The long-awaited sequel expands the open world of Hyrule in three dimensions, inherently changes fundamental game mechanics, and tugs on…

Book Recommendations for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month — As Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month comes to a close, I thought I would follow the success of my article celebrating forthcoming LGBTQ+ books for #IndieApril by recommending some LGBTQ+ books with AAPI characters and/or written by AAPI authors. Of course, as with Black History Month or…

Babysitting for a divorcing couple should come with hazard pay — When I was seventeen years old, I started working for a young mom, Mandy, with a two-year-old son. Mandy and little Ethan lived in a Bungalow on Sunnylea Drive, right around the corner from my childhood home. Mandy’s husband Jeff worked for an oil company out in Alberta and was…

Reviewing Bo Burnham’s “misogynistic” song from Inside — It is easy to mistake Bo Burnham’s song “White Woman’s Instagram” as a misogynistic attack on things that make women happy, but that’s a surface-level interpretation of the song — which actually demands that we consider people more complexly, not less. The comedian, known for punchy social commentary, opens with…

A teaser for my bisexual YA thriller, JMS Books 2023 — My YA novel Out of Order was first published in 2015 with Dreamspinner Press. After a prolonged period of being out of print, I am excited to be rereleasing the book, along with two sequels, with JMS Books in 2023. Please enjoy the following excerpt. It was hard to choose…