Harmony House: The Door is Open

The new book and an open call for auditions!

Hello friends, old and new! It’s been a very long time since I’ve peeked around the fourth wall to address you. If you’re a new subscriber, all you may have seen from me are my weekly Daedalia chapter posts. But I’ve been very busy and also holding out until the time was right to make this official announcement.

Harmony House, a book I serialized right here in 2024 is being published this month by TinyWorlds and I couldn’t be more excited. Check out the gorgeous cover art by the brilliant Shane Bzdok below. You’ll be able to pre-order your very own copy, but we’ll get to all that later in the post. First, let’s go back in time a bit. Thank you for being here to celebrate this milestone with me. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Gorgeous cover art by the talented Shane Bzdok.

Six years ago we all woke up to a world that was nothing like the one we knew the day before. But that was just the beginning of adjusting to a new reality for me.

I was newly divorced after twenty-seven years and I was quarantining in a small, mostly unfurnished apartment with my younger daughter who had just come out to me as trans. A life I thought I understood had to be completely reexamined at 50.

I’ve always gone inward during times of uncertainty. I’ve always turned to making things. For the better part of my life, those things were songs, but increasingly, they have become novels. Both of these ventures require a healthy dose of daydreaming. Like a lot of people during the pandemic, I started fantasizing about buying a piece of land, escaping the city and returning to the rural place where I’d grown up. I had this picture of a few small sustainable homes in the North Georgia mountains, friends and family close by, a place where people could be safe together. It was sincere. I wanted a community more than ever. I needed one. But I was barely making rent and covering college loans for my kids. So I put that energy into starting a new book.

I went down the research hole — tiny homes, prefab, the whole bright promise of sustainable living. And a darker question kept surfacing. Can a genuinely good idea survive contact with the world we actually live in? Or does every beautiful thing eventually get turned into a product, a driver of infinite growth?

That was the collision. And somewhere in it, six people started talking in my head and wouldn’t stop. They took the shape of Freudian archetypes: the scientist, the entertainer, the agitator, the giver, the narcissist, and the believer.

A young PhD candidate struggling to be seen. A musician running from a transgression that cost him. A cranky old man who can’t let a single injustice pass without naming it. A nanny who has spent her life taking care of other people’s kids. A young immigrant tech bro with an outfit for every occasion. And a believer, certain God’s plan doesn’t include people who don’t look like her. Put them in a reality TV show, competing to win the 500-square-foot home they must live in together. The concept was enough to propel me for a few months and then it fizzled out. I set the handful of chapters aside and resumed, climbing out of the crater that was my life at the time.

In 2024 I picked it up again. The landscape of my life had improved dramatically. This was, in no small part, a result of my partner Paradis’s loving support. She had read everything I’d written up to that point and needed a new story. I’d also found a community of writers here on Substack who both inspired and challenged me. I needed to produce a new post every week. That was the price of admission. So I began serializing Harmony House while it was still only half complete. A daring and foolish feat to be sure.

To my surprise and delight, readers started showing up every week to read or listen to the new chapters. It was a regular injection of proof that what I was writing was a compelling story.

Now this road-tested and reader-approved story is just waiting for you to discover it and go on the same journey I did with a band of friends two years ago.

Your Invitation to Enter the House

The paperback and e-book editions will be officially available July 31st at TinyWorlds. But you can pre-order a copy today! Catch & Release paid subscribers get a 20% discount on the paperback (you’ll receive the code this week via a special email). The audiobook will follow in the fall after I’ve had a chance to re-record the many edits that went into this published edition.

Ready for your audition?

I thought it would be fun for you to experience what the six contestants in Harmony House did. It’s an audition. A chance to win a spot in the luxurious, sustainable home of the future. If you’re picked and you can outlast the others, in the 500 square feet of design and engineering perfection, it’s yours!¹

1. Go to houze.live

2. Record your answer to one of five possible questions

3. Find out if you’re in!

What happens is kind of a magic trick I think you’ll love. Give it try. You can share your response from Houze with others and view the gallery of other responses too. Everyone who enters gets an invitation to the Live Online Launch Event, date to be announced! You’ll also be eligible to win a signed copy of the book. Winners will be announced at the live event.

I’ve got a lot more planned in the weeks to come— special interviews, and behind-the-scenes looks at the making of the novel. It’s going to be a fun ride. Thanks for taking it with me!

1. You probably knew this already, but there is no actual contest. There is no show. You won’t be winning an actual house. But you will have fun with this little experience. That’s guaranteed.