So Shadowcasting, the third book in the Mia Graves Saga, came out back in December in paperback and on Kindle. Well, its been three months, and that means its time for the eBook to get wider availability!

Shadowcasting is now available in my Patreon shop! It’s the same price as the book is on Amazon ($3). Like previous books I’ve released in my Patreon shop, patrons at the $10 level can download the book as a part of their benefits. Additionally, this will become available to folks at the $5 level on December 15th 2025.

Over the next few days the book will also become available on Kobo (it’s currently awaiting approval). Additionally it will become available on Overdrive for Libraries to purchase as an eBook.

I’ve said this before, but Shadowcasting is probably my favorite book in the series so far, and I’m excited that it will be available on more platforms for people to enjoy. Of course, you can still buy the book as a paperback on Amazon, as a direct order through IngramSpark, or through any bookseller with the ISBN 9781088207031. Or, y’know, on Kindle too I guess.

And, as always, the earlier two books in the series, The Witch and the Rose and Bloody Damn Rite are still on sale too both on my Patreon shop, Amazon and everywhere else.

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I know hardly anyone ever reads what I type in this blog, it’s sporadic posts only getting occasionally seen by the folks who follow me on other social platforms clicking through on indistinct links I don’t describe well enough, along with the occasional passersby on my comics who bother to scroll down past what they actually went there for. But I had a strange need to write something tonight — to put down some words in this blog which started when I was twenty-five years younger than I am today.

I sometimes wonder about how stable the world will be in a few years with the chaos we’re currently living through. Is it a good thing we haven’t bought a house yet? Will our savings have any value when all things are said and done? Is the world we live in now the final stages of something that will feel like a distant memory when I’m older?

Assuming I get to be older?

I’ve been watching old archived episodes of The Computer Chronicles, slipping back into time capsules of the 1980s and 1990s through the rose tinted glasses of retro techno-optimism. I don’t miss living in that time period (beyond the general comfort of being a child who didn’t have to remember to check the date on spinach at the grocery store), but I find myself missing the feeling that technology gave me when it frankly just couldn’t do as much.

That probably didn’t make a ton of sense. I don’t really know that I was trying to though.

With the current state of the world, I’ve found myself as stressed out as I did five years ago. And honestly, it’s making writing harder.

Which is, frankly, kind of a problem when you’re knee deep in writing a novel and an ongoing comic. Stuff’s moving, and it’s moving slowly. I may delay the fourth Mia Graves novel a couple of months if I can’t make serious progress in the next two weeks on this draft. Peregrine Lake, thankfully, comes more easily just because I’m not doing that alone and I only have to get the gist of certain things down on the page for Ethan most of the time.

This was a ramble, and a largely pointless one. But it’s the kind of post I used to write here every week for years. I spent a lot of time reworking stuff on this site the last few days, even though almost all of it’s invisible. Like it is no longer unusable on a smart phone now. Because of that I ended up testing and looking at stuff I hadn’t really poked at in a really, really long time.

And I know in a few days I’ll write a new post here about the Shadowcasting eBook becoming available on other platforms beyond Kindle — so this will shuffle off the main page of my site and down the list into the abyss on the comic sites where no one will read this… but I just felt like talking, and you were here to read it.

I should probably take a shower and go to bed. I have a dentist appointment in the morning. I am a responsible person with a regular dentist and doctor.

Couldn’t say that twenty-five years ago.

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Well, it’s time for my first convention of 2025! This weekend (February 28th-March 2nd) I’m going to be at Evercon just outside Wausau, WI. I’m going to be in the vendor room with copies of my novels, comics, and the Super Awesome Action Heroes RPG system for sale.



Besides me though, you can also find a bunch of Nerd & Tie creators at Evercon in the Artist Alley — including Peregrine Lake‘s talented artist Ethan Flanagan! Ethan will be at table 21, right next to Gen Prock at table 20. Celeste is going to be helping work their spouse Rena’s table over at table 1 too!



Honestly, I’m super excited and I hope to see you there!

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I’m excited to announce that Shadowcasting, book three in the Mia Graves Saga, is now out!

I could run through a brief description of the book and I give the back-of-book synopsis again (like I did when pre-orders went up), but you can go back and read that post if you want to. The short version is “how do you talk a twenty-something out of using a magical nuke, especially when you just work retail.”

In all honesty, this is my favorite book in the series so far. In some ways it’s very different than the two earlier books in a couple of ways, but still feels like the same series. There’s not much else I can say without major spoilers, so you’ll just have to trust me on that one.

Like my earlier releases, for the first three months the eBook will be available only on Kindle (and Kindle Unlimited), but you can also get the paperback a couple of ways. First off, there’s always Amazon, but you can always direct order a copy if you want to avoid Bezos. Finally, you can get it through any bookseller with the ISBN 9781088207031.

So yeah, the book is here, and I’m excited that folks will get to read it finally.

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So the world may be on fire, but we don’t stop living just because we’re also doing our best surviving, y’know? This Saturday I’m going to be at UWEC GEEKcon 2024, a one day convention held at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Davies Center in (you guessed it) Eau Claire, WI!

I’m going to have copies of UnCONventional print editions, and (of course) copies of my Mia Graves novels. Importantly I will have copies of Shadowcasting, the third book in the series, a week earlier than the general sale date. Yep, you can get book three early and meet me.

The best part? GEEKcon is inexpensive to attend as well. If you’re a student, entry is free with showing your ID, and if you’re not there’s a suggested donation of either $3 or 2 non-perishable food items.

Honestly, small college shows like this are my favorite kind of convention. Just people running a geeky event for the fun of it and the community. It’s my favorite kind of con, and if you start going to them, they’ll probably become your favorite too.

So if you’re in the Eau Claire, WI area and free December 7th (and you’re the kind of person who’d be reading this blog entry), why not come down and say hi? I think it’s going to be a good time.

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“Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!”
-Joe Hill

My brother texted the family group chat this quote before he went to work today. I’m not in a good place this morning, but we can’t lose ourselves to despair. I know I have a lot of anger right now, but getting into whose fault what is won’t help anyone.

Dwelling on the people I will never forgive won’t help anyone.

I’m not that optimistic, but hope is a choice we can still make. It’s a hard one to make this morning, but I’m still going to do my best. We are where we are, and focusing on yesterday won’t change that. We can only move forward, and save as many as we can along the way.

There will be a tomorrow because we’re going to make sure there’s a tomorrow.

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So the big difference between Peregrine Lake and my earlier comics is, obviously, that I’m not the one drawing it. When I was doing my earlier comics, I never wrote down what I was planning, I just had it in my head and would translate it directly to the page. At most I’d write one sentence lines about strips so I could plot out pacing. I did a few thumbnails early on to figure out page layouts, but more often than not the pages didn’t exist in any form until I wrote them.

That obviously isn’t a way we can work for this comic.

I can’t sit there over Ethan’s shoulder while they draw, since that would be weird and we don’t live in the same city. So I do what comic writers have been doing for quite some time. I write scripts. That’s where every page for Peregrine Lake starts. Then, if Ethan needs any clarification on a description or has an alternate suggestion for a setting or scene, we talk about it.

But again, we start by my writing a script.

So I thought it might be fun to take a look at a recent installment and compare the final art to the initial script I wrote. Our example is the October 22nd page titled “Greg.” It is, unsurprisingly, the first page where we see the final of our four main characters.

I love this page, but let’s see the initial script:

Panel 1
Greg emerges from the curtained doorway. Tall panel. If this were television or film, we’d smear some Vaseline on the lens for the best gooey soft focus shot we could get. God damn, we want everyone seeing this to want a piece of Greg. Like take a second slice home in a take out box and eat it while watching Netflix. Let’s make this far more detailed than any other panel. Let’s get people to demand we print this man on body pillows.

Panel 2
Close up of Bev’s face. She wants to just lay Greg down and cover him in butter.

Bev: (tiny ass words, whispering to self) Yeah… not talking good.

Panel 3
Greg leans on the counter towards Lynn, Bev is… “reacting” quietly, but no one’s paying her any attention

Greg: Hey Lynn, Bob hasn’t gotten me those antique iron nails yet. I said I’d call when they come in.
Lynn: Thanks, but not what I’m here for. I may have an… off the books job for you
Greg: How off the books

Panel 4
Close up of Lynn. Lynn is very serious.

Lynn: Off the books off the books. Greg, this is my new friend Bev.

Panel 5
Back to a shot of the three of them, Greg turns to Bev smiling

Greg: Hi! Nice to meet you.
Bev: (tiny words) Hello tall man

Yep. That is… that is pretty close to what we got. We moved some of the dialogue around to fit better with the art (moving some of Greg’s stuff to panel one from panel three), but overall we stick pretty true to it. Ethan read my ridiculous descriptions and understood the assignment.

And yeah, I think it’s safe to assume at least some of our audience wants a piece of Greg now.

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So this has been probably one of my most productive years creatively in a long time. Back in January I published my first novel, The Witch and the Rose, and followed it up in June with a sequel, Bloody Damn Rite. Well, today I’m excited to officially announce the third book in the series, Shadowcasting, will be available on 12/15/2024!

Like the earlier books in the series, you can pre-order the book on Kindle immediately, and it will arrive on your device December 15th ready to go — but this time you can also pre-order the paperback version too, either through Amazon or through your favorite bookseller with the ISBN 9781088207031!

Honestly, I’m super excited about this one. It’s probably my favorite book in the series, and I can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on it. Here’s the back of cover synopsis:

Winter has clawed its way into the heart of Parrish Mills, and something far darker may have come with it. When Mia Graves, a witch with a habit of getting into trouble, and her best friend Riley Whittaker stumble across a grisly scene along the Wabash River, they find it reeks of dark, forbidden magic and has left at least one charred body in its wake.

With the help of young Bobbi Crawford, the further Mia and Riley dig into the events that took place on that cold Indiana morning, the more dire their circumstances reveal themselves to be. Between a stolen grimoire and a group of young witches who may not know how dangerous their actions are, shadows loom in the dark of winter.

And one of those shadows may be more dangerous than anyone imagined.

(Also, and this is unrelated, the non-Kindle, DRM free ePub version of Bloody Damn Rite is now available in my Patreon store too)

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So UnCONventional has been in print for a long time – as the first print collection came out way back in 2010. The first four volumes of the book came out in 6″ x 9″ editions, while the rest of the series came out as larger 7″ x 10″ editions. The first volume was also pretty light on bonus features, as it was the first book I ever put out and didn’t necessarily know what I was doing.

This always bothered me, honestly, so I decided to do something about it.

As of today, the original four volumes of UnCONventional have been removed from the market, and replaced with a single collected volume. It’s 7″ x 10″ like the rest of the series, has new additional commentary (along with the existing commentary and bonus materials updated for 2024), and it’s just nicer. Also, where it would have cost $75 to buy books one through four the old way, this collected volume is cheaper at $60 US.

Now if you just want the commentary and other bonus features and don’t care about having the book in print (or if you already have these comics in the original print version and just want the new stuff), there is a PDF version of the volume for sale in my Patreon shop for only $12.

So yeah, same comics as before, just a new print edition, and its available today. Not super exciting. Not like the next bit.

(I think that was a good transition)

Super Awesome Action Heroes has been around in one form or another since 2006. The Second Edition went into print back in 2020, and we’ve been running Stormwood & Associates and The Meatgrinder on it pretty successfully. But I found a few flaws in the book that needed improving, and rolled out an online appendix to correct those flaws. Well, earlier this year I decided I needed to update the print version to reflect those rule updates too.

So yeah, on September 17th Super Awesome Action Heroes Second Edition Revised comes out. The print edition will still cost $7 the way the old one does, and honestly if you already own the book? Just download the free expansion. It’s like 99% the same rule book, just with the information on that page sprinkled in.

But, uh, if you don’t own the book and want it? That’s the version to get. That’s going to be the only version available from now on.

But yeah — you know how I said September 17th? That’s just for the print edition and Kindle edition. If you only want the eBook, you can actually buy that right now for $3 on my Patreon shop. Or, if you’re a Patreon supporter even at the $1 level, you get the eBook version included as a part of your Patreon benefits.

So, yeah. That’s the news for today with “books made by Trae.” There will be Mia Graves Book 3 news in the next couple of weeks, but we’ll save that for another day (like after I have some cover art to share with it).

See you then.

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So UnCONventional has been in print for a long time – as the first print collection came out way back in 2010. The first four volumes of the book came out in 6″ x 9″ editions, while the rest of the series came out as larger 7″ x 10″ editions. The first volume was also pretty light on bonus features, as it was the first book I ever put out and didn’t necessarily know what I was doing.

This always bothered me, honestly, so I decided to do something about it.

As of today, the original four volumes of UnCONventional have been removed from the market, and replaced with a single collected volume. It’s 7″ x 10″ like the rest of the series, has new additional commentary (along with the existing commentary and bonus materials updated for 2024), and it’s just nicer. Also, where it would have cost $75 to buy books one through four the old way, this collected volume is cheaper at $60 US.

Now if you just want the commentary and other bonus features and don’t care about having the book in print (or if you already have these comics in the original print version and just want the new stuff), there is a PDF version of the volume for sale in my Patreon shop for only $12.

So yeah, same comics as before, just a new print edition, and its available today. Not super exciting. Not like the next bit.

(I think that was a good transition)

Super Awesome Action Heroes has been around in one form or another since 2006. The Second Edition went into print back in 2020, and we’ve been running Stormwood & Associates and The Meatgrinder on it pretty successfully. But I found a few flaws in the book that needed improving, and rolled out an online appendix to correct those flaws. Well, earlier this year I decided I needed to update the print version to reflect those rule updates too.

So yeah, on September 17th Super Awesome Action Heroes Second Edition Revised comes out. The print edition will still cost $7 the way the old one does, and honestly if you already own the book? Just download the free expansion. It’s like 99% the same rule book, just with the information on that page sprinkled in.

But, uh, if you don’t own the book and want it? That’s the version to get. That’s going to be the only version available from now on.

But yeah — you know how I said September 17th? That’s just for the print edition and Kindle edition. If you only want the eBook, you can actually buy that right now for $3 on my Patreon shop. Or, if you’re a Patreon supporter even at the $1 level, you get the eBook version included as a part of your Patreon benefits.

So, yeah. That’s the news for today with “books made by Trae.” There will be Mia Graves Book 3 news in the next couple of weeks, but we’ll save that for another day (like after I have some cover art to share with it).

See you then.

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