New Yearsletter
What I did in 2025.
What Manner of Man is complete! Read it for free ✨ here ✨ or buy the better, more exciting revamped edition via Amazon or (DRM-free) on Itch.io.
Hello Darlings,
Vile and wretched New Year! In the following newsletter: reflections on 2025 and updates on A Companion in Vice + an essay project and What Manner of Man physical editions.
If I could sum up 2025 in a word, it would be: frustrating. This was a year of beginning very ambitious projects that have not been completed in a timely manner — thus, relatively few newsletters. (Would you believe that I had ambitions to start publishing A Companion in Vice in June?)
That is in the past, however. In 2025, I have created what is easily my best work to date. In 2026, you will finally taste the fruits of my labours.
The following is a run-down of the projects I am working on, and where I am in the process of each project:
A Companion in Vice
What is A Companion in Vice?
A brief reminder for those who have subscribed during this fallow period (if you are utterly confused about what you have signed up for, you may wish to explore the navigation post.)
A Companion in Vice is a gothic-noir novel about hazardously toxic queer romance and mad science.
Martin Rem knows that Dr. Avenroyth isn’t dead, because he brought him back to life with his own hands — although that’s more than he can say to the police.
When people connected to Dr. Avenroyth start dying under mysterious circumstances, Martin must find a way to protect his own dark secrets, as well as the life of the man who may be trying to kill him.
Can love survive the frightening transformation the doctor has undergone? What lies at the heart of this labyrinth of institutional corruption, professional ambition, jealousy, sex, and death?
I have a substantial amount of the novel written and ready to publish. As Patrons are well aware, however, the opening chapters of A Companion in Vice are among the most complex and difficult writing I’ve ever attempted — they are practically a novella on their own — and I have been trapped for an eternity revising them (and making changes, accordingly, to the material that follows.)
That being said, I do not anticipate these revisions will take much longer. I’m terribly excited about the book that A Companion in Vice is shaping up to be, and I am looking forward to beginning to publish it this year!
Reader polls!
Much like I did with What Manner of Man, I am going to be having a series of polls giving readers a chance to provide input into the development of A Companion in Vice. These have ended up being slightly delayed, but you should expect to hear more about them shortly.
Essays
Ah — my essay project from hell. Absolutely nobody wanted me to write this. I struggle somewhat to describe it, and it has expanded in scope beyond my wildest expectations.
These essays began as an attempt to explain to a friend how I approach finding an audience for my work, and how deeply intertwined that is with the writing process itself. I thought that I would also be able to use these thoughts to fill the gap between releases.
That is no longer what they are (although I now have some material on that topic as well, which I could also prepare for release separately) — instead, while attempting to describe how I run things around here, and why I have made the decisions that I have, I accidentally had a series of realizations about the nature of the modern internet, the way that the structure of social media platforms disrupts community formation, and how we can begin to build an escape hatch instead.
I do not know when these will be ready — I need to do some research; fill in a number of gaps — but I’m excited to share this work also in the coming year!
What Manner of Man Physical Editions
I know a lot of people are dying for physical copies of What Manner of Man, and I am dying to have them ready for you. These are high priority for me right now!
I was held up on these last year by bureaucratic bullshit which, having been overcome, has transformed itself into different bureaucratic bullshit. Now that the holidays are over, I will be making some phone calls.
I had hoped to have the physical release ready at the beginning of December, in time for the holidays. Obviously, that has not happened, but I anticipate making progress on them this month. Thank you for your patience.
Finally — if you’d like to help me continue all of this — join my wicked advisors on Patreon.
I am, as always, your devoted servant,
St John Starling