Onward & Outward
Heading into my last weekend in Chicago, after living here for 30 years. Definitely bittersweet for me. I tried unsuccessfully for three years to land a permanent job...came painfully close a dozen times, but no dice.
My new residence will be in Pittsburgh, which is a nice city I frequented in my youth. The lower cost-of-living will help buy me a little more time as I struggle to land a job. Hopefully my luck will improve there.
I've made Chicago the setting for so many of my books -- pointedly so, since I feel like Chicago gets culturally blown off at times by the media, relative to the coasts.
Chicago features prominently in my Wolfshadow Trilogy. I still see locations where I made scenes in those books, and feel wistful.
It's a key location in my Shutterclique superhero series (BRIGHTEYES, INFERNA, and, in '26, TANTRUM, with four more books pending).
I also made Chicago a key setting in my more recent SIGHTSEER cyberpunk novel ("Shytown" is what I call it in that series, with two more books pending).
Various short stories, too. I used it as a setting in a number of tales in THE THING IN YELLOW, my homage to the cult classic by Robert Chambers.
So, my love for Chicago flowed through a lot of my books over the years (decades, truly). I'll miss Chicago so much. I wanted nothing more than for my work to take hold with readers here, but it didn't happen.
Maybe Pittsburgh will work out better for me? I don't know. It's a good city, a fun city. Still, I see stuff like this:
Reading for Fun Fell by 40% Among Americans Over the Past 20 Years
And I feel a keen sense of despair. I'll keep writing, of course, and just hope it resonates with readers.
My new residence will be in Pittsburgh, which is a nice city I frequented in my youth. The lower cost-of-living will help buy me a little more time as I struggle to land a job. Hopefully my luck will improve there.
I've made Chicago the setting for so many of my books -- pointedly so, since I feel like Chicago gets culturally blown off at times by the media, relative to the coasts.
Chicago features prominently in my Wolfshadow Trilogy. I still see locations where I made scenes in those books, and feel wistful.
It's a key location in my Shutterclique superhero series (BRIGHTEYES, INFERNA, and, in '26, TANTRUM, with four more books pending).
I also made Chicago a key setting in my more recent SIGHTSEER cyberpunk novel ("Shytown" is what I call it in that series, with two more books pending).
Various short stories, too. I used it as a setting in a number of tales in THE THING IN YELLOW, my homage to the cult classic by Robert Chambers.
So, my love for Chicago flowed through a lot of my books over the years (decades, truly). I'll miss Chicago so much. I wanted nothing more than for my work to take hold with readers here, but it didn't happen.
Maybe Pittsburgh will work out better for me? I don't know. It's a good city, a fun city. Still, I see stuff like this:
Reading for Fun Fell by 40% Among Americans Over the Past 20 Years
And I feel a keen sense of despair. I'll keep writing, of course, and just hope it resonates with readers.
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