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The Ballad of Joan Henry

You can read my short story, “The Ballad of Joan Henry” for free. It’s featured at Fiction on the Web, along with a great accompanying image. First, though, I’ll give you some background.

John Henry

Before Joan, there was John. The legend of John Henry depicts him as a former slave, now a free man, working at steel driving. That job involved hammering a steel chisel into rock to create holes for dynamite. They used explosives to build railway tunnels through mountains. No man could outdo John Henry in this task. He accepted a challenge to see if he could work faster than a steam-powered drilling machine. In the end, he won the race, only to die from exhaustion.

Joan Henry

My story, set in the near future, involves Joan Henry, a female CEO of an auto parts manufacturing company in West Virginia. To keep her firm profitable, she’s fired most of the human workers and replaced them with robots. Now, the board of directors is considering a robotic CEO. They set up a challenge where she must compete with this robot for her own job. After that, the story deviates from its John Henry roots.

Setting

“The Ballad of Joan Henry” takes place in a future a few years from now, when robots perform most of the work and all humans receive Universal Basic Income. People respond to this in various ways, and many resent the takeover of jobs.

Comments

The story has already garnered two favorable comments and I thank those two readers for their kind words.

Fantasy or Prophesy?

Today, corporations are replacing human workers with robots and AI. Will things get as bad as I portray in my story? Or will things settle to a new equilibrium state, one acceptable to humans? If my story proves prophetic, well, you heard it first from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 4, 2026Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Printed Tribute Books, So You Never Forget

After someone dies, people often hold a funeral or memorial service or celebration of life. Each of these honor the dead but, as one-time events, they lack permanence. Would you consider a printed book as a tribute to a departed loved one?

Advantages

As mentioned above, a book lasts longer than a one-off event. Convenience counts as an advantage, too—you may pick up the book at any time and page through it to remember your loved one. Also, the volume of facts in a book can far exceed the number of anecdotes and memories glossed over at an event, and you need not read the book in one sitting. In addition, you may enjoy a book in solitude, at a time when you may not welcome the presence of others.

Description

Like funerals, tribute books benefit the living. Therefore, if you choose to create one, think of the book’s audience. What would they most want to know about the person being honored? You needn’t approach the task like a biographer—reporting a life story, citing sources, verifying facts, conveying the bad along with the good. Instead, make it your purpose to honor, not just inform.

Did your departed family member write a lot—even letters, recipes, poems, emails, texts? Consider including some of these as appropriate, if they help convey the essence of the person’s life.

These days, we take and save pictures, each worth (as the saying goes) a thousand words. Include the best of these in your tribute book. Explanatory captions should accompany the pictures, with dates and descriptions of each image.

Videos represent a difficulty—how do you include them in a printed book? You could upload videos to a website, assign QR (Quick Response) codes to them, and include the QR codes in your book. Or you can attach, to each copy of the book, a thumb drive with the valued videos saved on it.

Creation

How do you make a tribute book? Various options exist, and your choice may depend on the energy, time, and money you can devote to the effort. You can pay a service to help you by doing the parts of the work you might find difficult. Such services include ModernHeirloomBooks.com, SimplyCelebrate.com, TributeStoryBook.com, ALifeUntold.com, NewlyWords.com, MyStoryFlow.com, and ModernMemoirs.com.

Personal Example

My father died in 2022 at the age of 91. I knew nothing about tribute books then. However, as mentioned in a previous post, he left behind over 800 written vignettes describing his life and thoughts about everything along the way. Rather than having these vignettes wither away in password-protected oblivion inside obscure internet servers, forgotten and unread, I had them printed in book form.

Easy, huh? After all, my dad had written everything. All I had to do was copy, paste, format, and send to the printer.

Not so easy. It took almost two years. I’m proud of the result—a tribute book in two volumes totaling 1410 pages. Rather long for a tribute book—or any book—but Dad wrote all of it except the Foreword. That being the case, the book resembles an autobiography as much as a tribute book. I didn’t hire a service, just formatted the manuscript and had a few copies printed by Lulu.com for my family. I used that site, but you may choose from a variety of others.

Your Tribute Book

Could you create a book as a tribute to a lost loved one? Books endure, and family members, even those yet unborn, could learn about their ancestors. I offer the notion as a suggestion to consider. In deepest sympathy for you on the loss of someone you love, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 1, 2026Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Writercore—the Easy Way to Become a Writer

Everyone turns to me for news on the latest trends, the hottest aesthetics, and the current fashions. Never one to disappoint my many fans, I’ll delve into writercore today.

What is Writercore?

It’s a vibe, a style meant to announce you’re a writer. To achieve it, wear a vest and long coat (leather or tweed) with a wide belt. When you go out, wear a flat cap. Select colors in the brown and sepia range. Carry a fancy fountain pen and a leatherbound journal.

To complete the look and feel, sit at a desk with your typewriter (yes, typewriter) and your coffee mug (or teacup and saucer). Nearby stands your bookshelf weighed down with books and inspirational knickknacks.

For a better description of writercore, see this post by Kara Race-Moore.

Walmart even offers a writercore mug.

Why -core?

Because everything’s -core these days. Add the suffix -core and you’ve got an aesthetic. It derives from the Latin cor, meaning heart. Writercore = the heart (or core) of being a writer.

Are there other -cores?

More than I wish to mention, but I’ll cite four examples. Cluttercore allows you to crowd your living space with things you love. Those into Gorpcore wear outdoor recreation clothes as urban streetwear. Normcore seems a reaction against the -core trends, since its adherents wear unassuming, average clothes. Yes, even that requires its own special name.

Poetcore deserves its own paragraph. At the moment, it seems a more defined and widespread fashion trend, with writercore as a minor offshoot. Though related, the two differ a little. For more information about poetcore, see this New York Post article and this article in Culture Mosaic.

Will writercore really make me a writer?

Maybe. Who am I to say? Perhaps you need the vibe to get in the mood to write.

To be honest, I think the odds stack up against it. Seems to me you’re better off actually writing and getting published first, and then inventing your own version of writercore style later. Perhaps writing style exceeds clothing and furniture style in importance.

With nary a typewriter, fountain pen, or leatherbound journal in sight, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 25, 2026Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Get Yourself Ready for National Imagination Day

Tomorrow, the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday holiday coincides with National Imagination Day. Appropriate, huh?

What is National Imagination Day?

Picture a day set aside to celebrate the unlimited power of your mind to think whatever it wants to, to dream impossible dreams, to imagine a better world (or a worse one). That’s National Imagination Day.

Who Started It?

The folks at NationalDayCalendar.com started National Imagination Day in 2024, just two years ago.

What, Exactly, Is Imagination?

Imagination—the ability to form mental images of things not detected by the senses or not considered real.

From out of nothing at all, we can form something in our mind—something new to the world. Or, from raw materials at hand (or those we can think of) we can picture a new formation, a new construct, a new use.

We think of it as a trait exclusive to humans, but animals imagine too. What might they be imagining?

How Do I Celebrate National Imagination Day?

Glad you asked. Here are a few suggestions:

First, if you haven’t used your imagination in a while, you might need to prime your imagination pump. Let your mind return to a time when you imagined things with ease—as a young child. What did you imagine then? What did you pretend to be or do? Recall that time and remember the fun.
Another priming technique—watch a movie or TV show, or (better) read a fiction book. (If you’re not sure which books to read, I can recommend some.) Imagine yourself in the settings of that story. Or think how you would direct the show or write the book in a different and better way.
Consider a problem you face in your life, or one someone else faces. Write twenty solutions to the problem. Don’t limit yourself to practical, feasible solutions. Go crazy, but don’t stop until you reach twenty of them.
Take a walk in nature, maybe somewhere you haven’t walked before. Imagine an adventure there, with talking trees and animals, castles, wood sprites, or whatever.
Compose a song, with or without lyrics. Sing or hum it. Dance to it. They say music is the language of the soul.
Draw or paint a picture of whatever your mind imagines.
Build an imaginative physical creation using whatever materials you have at hand.
Write a story or poem about whatever your mind imagines.
Imagine your ideal video game. Write the premise of the game and its major characteristics.
Since we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday on the same day, read his famous “I Have Dream” speech. Imagine the country of that dream. What would that nation be like? Imagine yourself there.

What’s the Point?

Whichever suggestion you chose, did you have fun? If so, why not do a little imagining every day? No need to wait a year.

Look back at what you did. Did your imaginative activity spark something bigger? Did you brainstorm a workable solution to the problem? Could you write that story, or screenplay, or poem, and could you submit it? Might that song be something you could record? Is the picture you made or the structure you built sharable with others? How about that video game—would someone in the industry be interested? What might it take to get our country to resemble the one in Martin Luther King’s dream?

Don’t be disappointed if you imagined something silly or stupid or too private to share with others. Some imaginative ideas lead to profitable outcomes, but most don’t. National Imagination Day isn’t about making money.

However, consider this—every profitable innovative idea, every new song or story or painting or video game started out in someone’s imagination. They imagined them on a day like today.

You have an imagination. Use it! Don’t let that powerful ability go to waste. Every day can be National Imagination Day for people like you, and for writers like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 18, 2026Poseidon's ScribePermalink 2 Comments

Keyboards Now Untouched – American Scifi Authors Lost in 2025

As we start 2026, let’s begin by remembering the many authors we lost in 2025. To reduce the list to a readable blogpost, I’ll just honor the prominent American science fiction authors who died last year. I used the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as a source.

Al Sarrantonio (1952-2025)

A horror writer, editor, publisher, he authored more than fifty books and ninety short stories, and edited several anthologies. He authored the Five Worlds science fiction trilogy and the Master of Mars scifi trilogy.

Thomas Hoobler (1942-2025)

Along with his surviving wife, Dorothy, he co-authored more than 100 books. In science fiction, they wrote The Hunters, Treasure Hunters, and Dr. Chill’s Project.

Barry B. Longyear (1942-2025)

He wrote numerous scifi novels, including the Hugo and Nebula winning novella Enemy Mine, later made into a movie. He was the first writer to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards in the same year.

Peter David (1956-2025)

Though primarily a comic-book writer, he also wrote the novel several popular Star Trek novels, Babylon 5 novels, and novel adaptations of films, among others.

Susan Beth Pfeffer (1948-2025)

She wrote over seventy science fiction and young adult novels, including the popular Moon Crash series.

Paulette Jiles (1943-2025)

Though mainly a poet and memoirist, Jiles also wrote science fiction, notably The Late Great Human Road Show (set in a future dystopic Toronto), and Lighthouse Island (set in an overpopulated future with a worldwide city).

Martin Cruz Smith (1942-2025)

He wrote scifi and mystery. The Indians Won was alternate history. His Gypsy series featured a detective with ESP. He also wrote scifi thrillers The Inca Death Squad, Code Name: Werewolf, and The Devil’s Dozen.

Greg Iles (1960-2025)

Though he wrote novels in many genres, The Footprints of God features the blending of a human mind with a computer to run the government.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1942-2025)

More known for occult and mystery novels, she also wrote Cautionary Tales and the dystopian future novels Time of the Fourth Horseman, False Dawn, and Hyacinth.

Robert R. Chase (1948-2025)

His scifi short stories appeared in Analog, and Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. He also published three scifi novels.

John Varley (1947-2025)

A Hugo and Nebula award winner, he wrote fourteen novels and numerous short stories. Notable series include the Eight Worlds series and the Thunder and Lightning series. In style, he compared to Robert A. Heinlein.

Requiescant in pace

May these authors rest in peace. In a way, they live forever, since their writings endure. They’re remembered today by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 4, 2026Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Nostradamus Helped Me See the Future of Scifi

Want to know what science fiction will get published in 2026? You’ve come to the right place, at the right time.

Nostradamus Image generated using Perchance.org

I’ve made scifi publication predictions before, with little success. However, the methods I used—crystal balls, tea leaves, tarot cards, astrology, palmistry, ChatGPT, and a Ouija Board—didn’t produce accurate prophesies.

This year, I sought the most reliable and proven prognostication technique of all—the method of Nostradamus himself.

Imitating that 16^th Century French seer, I secreted myself in the attic, meditated, prayed, consulted astrological charts, and made sketches and notes of the visions that came to me. To my surprise, a set of four-line poems—quatrains—emerged from this process. Contrasting with those of Nostradamus, my quatrains came to me in English.

I’ll provide the quatrains, and my interpretation of their cryptic phrasing, below.

Translated SF

    In ’26 the science fiction bands
    Will stretch to languages of distant lungs
    The tales from writers writ in other lands
    Will translate fiction from their foreign tongues

I believe this means we’ll see a surge of translated science fiction in 2026.

Space Opera

    The coming year will see space opera bloom
    Vast empires ’cross the galaxies galore
    Equipped with FTL, the starships zoom
   Through epic dramas, aliens, and war

This suggests a revival of space opera in 2026. FTL = faster than light.

Characters Beyond Gender

    Some authors will play more with gender norms
    Not always stuck with females and with males
    Their characters will switch or take new forms
    Within new trans and gender-fluid tales

I interpret this to mean we should expect to leave female and male characters behind, in favor of new genders, changeable genders, non-genders, and who knows what else.

Serial Fiction

    We’ll see rebirth of serials again
    With shorter bites to match attention spans
    Subscriptions, author newsletters, and then
    Some dedicated apps with bundled plans

If I’m construing the meaning of this in the right way, we should find authors writing short chunks with cliffhanger endings to entice readers to subscribe to read the complete stories in serial form.

Hybrid Genres

    Next, hybrid genres will remain a trend
    Scifi can mix with others all the time
    To form a very complement’ry blend
    With horror, and romance, and even crime

This quatrain hints at the continuing trend of mixing scifi with other genres.

Year of the Horse

    In Chinese myth, this next year marks the horse
    And scifi books will emulate the steed
    With high adventure, optimistic force
    Heroic, active, with pulse-pounding speed

It’s hard to extract much meaning from this. Perhaps it’s suggesting scifi in 2026 will take on equine attributes of power, independence, perseverance, and confidence.

Conclusion

Look for the results of these predictions next December. Being curious, I couldn’t resist applying Nostradamus’ methods to discover what the new year will mean for me. Here’s what resulted:

    This lies beyond the sight of any seer
    Will he soon join “best-selling author” tribe?
    He’ll work hard but the outcome is unclear
    It’s unknown what awaits—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 28, 2025Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

How Well Did I Predict Science Fiction this Year?

It’s the most embarrassing time of the year…when I judge how well I did at foretelling what types of science fiction books would be published this year.

In past years, I’ve tried and failed with crystal balls, tea leaves, tarot cards, astrology, palmistry, and ChatGPT, but last year at this time I used a sure-fire method—the Ouija Board. Let’s see how well I did:

Prediction: Climate Change and Solarpunk

Authors will give us post-apocalyptic, post-climate-disaster recovery stories with emerging solarpunk civilizations.

Assessment:

The Ouija Board did well here, and I found several examples, including:

All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall. Future glaciers have melted, flooding the earth and forcing people to live in the topmost floors of skyscrapers.
Private Rites by Julia Armfield. An environmental crisis brings continuous, worldwide rain.
Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers. This book combines two previous stories, A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, which take place in a far-future solarpunk utopia.

Prediction: Driverless Cars

Writers will show us the pros and cons of more advanced driverless cars than we have now.

Assessment:

The Ouija board called this category as well. These books drive on the dark/horror side of the road:

The Driverless: Phantom Wheels by Leonard Boblea Adrian. This horror story features an evil, driverless car.
An ICE-Y Ride: A Dystopian Tech Horror Short Story by TH Sterling. An autonomous car accuses its passenger of sedition and becomes her prison.

Prediction: Futurism Beyond Africa

While Afrofuturism will continue, we’ll see books exploring the future of other cultures and regions.

Assessment:

This didn’t seem as widespread as the Ouija board made it sound. I only found one example:

You Must Take Part in Revolution: A Graphic Novel by Badiucao and Melissa Chan. This is set in Hong Kong and Taiwan during a future war between the U.S. and China.

Prediction: Fact-ion

Scifi authors will combine their fiction with fact. That is, they’ll base a fictional tale on a true event.

Assessment:

Proving that Ouija boards aren’t all-knowing, I found no examples of this in 2025.

Prediction: Future Romance

Setting a romance novel in the future is fine, but in the coming year, authors will further explore how human relationships might change in the future. What bizarre, new kinds of relationships might emerge?

Assessment:

The board played it safe with this one. Anyone could’ve made this prediction for almost any year. I stopped looking for examples after finding these:

Useless: Male Superhero in a Reverse World by Strawman Context. A man finds himself in an alternate world where women far outnumber men and hold all the power.
A Future Undone: A Gay Sci-Fi Romance Thriller About Time Travel and Artificial Intelligence by Kurt Harding. The subtitle says it all.
The House That Learned Her Name by Wanda Miller. A grieving widow develops a relationship with her smart home.
Mated to the Possessive Cyborg: An Impreg Cyborg Sci-Fi Romance by Laura Cauldwell. Like Beauty and the Beast, only this beast is a troubled, military cyborg.

Prediction: Interacting With Readers

Remember choose-your-own-adventure books? In 2025, authors will find new ways to allow the reader to influence the story-reading experience.

Assessment:

Ouija boards are interactive by nature, and I got the impression my board enjoyed making this prediction. Here are some examples I found:

Unseen Archives Magazine: An Interactive Graphic Novel Experience by Anthony L Abraham. The more I read about this magazine, the less I understood, but it seems interactive.
Access The Bridge: A SciFi Choose-Your-Own-Path Adventure GameBook by Henry Butler. This goes beyond standard choose-your-own adventure books, since the wrong paths provide knowledge needed for other paths.
Lumen Calls: A Pathfinder Adventure by Gene Anders. A strange anomaly beckons near a small town. You, the reader, make choices, but each choice changes how the anomaly sees you.

Prediction: Linked Minds

Extrapolating the possibilities of Elon Musk’s Neuralink, writers will craft stories featuring human characters interfacing with computers via brain implants.

Assessment:

The Ouija board didn’t exactly go out on a limb in predicting more books with this long-time staple of science fiction, and authors obliged in 2025:

Virtuality by Derek Cressman. In the near future, everyone has brain implants providing infotainment, but there are side effects.
Veritas Dawn by Tal Azar. A pill upgrades people’s minds, and connects them. An algorithm emerges, but has its own agenda.

Prediction: Merged Worlds

Pairs of authors will collaborate on novels that combine characters and worlds developed separately and previously by each writer.

Assessment:

These are a type of what are called Crossovers, and the Ouija board failed with this one. I found no examples.

Prediction: Quality AI Fiction

In the coming year, an AI will write a good science fiction book.

Assessment:

I thought for sure the board nailed this, and I did find examples of books written with AI assistance, but no verified AI solo performances this year.

Conclusion

I find the Ouija board a little creepy, and of dubious value in predicting the near future of scifi. I’ve picked a much better prognostication tool, and next week I’ll reveal my spot-on predictions for science fiction in 2026. First, I foresee you’ll check back for next week’s post by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 21, 2025Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Time for the Dreaded Annual Performance Review

My boss gets on my nerves. In fact, he shares my nerves. He’s me.

The Scoreboard

How did I perform as a writer in 2025? To find out, I used The Writer’s Performance Review scorecard by book coach Jennie Nash.

To use this scorecard, you rank each attribute from one to five. One = below expectations. Two = partially meets expectations. Three = meets expectations. Four = exceeds expectations. Five = far exceeds expectations.

You’re comparing actual performance during the year to expected performance. If you performed as expected, you’d give yourself a three. If you scored three in all twenty attributes, you’d get 60.

My 2025 Performance and Plan for Improving in 2026

I did a little better this year than last, earning 70 out of 100. However, I earned a 1 in one category and a 2 in two others.

That dismal 1 rating applied to “goal orientation” (just like last year)—a tough area for me. I don’t like counting words written or hours spent, so instead I’ll set goals for chapters written and chapters edited.

I earned ratings of 2 in “organization and planning” and “strategic thinking.” I’d gotten 2s in these areas last year as well. For organization and planning, I’ll measure my progress toward meeting the chapter goals I’ve set. For strategic thinking, I’ll see if I can connect with readers with a newsletter I plan to start in 2026.

Writing Accomplishments in 2025

This year, I:

got my first short story collection, The Seastead Chronicles, published;
got my short story, “Its Tender Metal Hand” published in the anthology Spring into Scifi 2025;
got Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne published in audiobook format;
wrote and published 53 blogposts (so far);
got interviewed on a podcast;
held four appearances and signings at bookstores;
did a signing at a scifi convention;
got my short story, “Infinity in Your Hand” accepted for publication in Tamarind Literary Magazine;
got my short story, “The Ballad of Joan Henry” accepted for publication in Fiction on the Web, where it’s slated to appear on February 2, 2026;
wrote seven poems for personal enjoyment;
made good progress on a final draft of novel number one (working title: The Hydronaut);
completed a second draft of novel number two (working title: Pressurized); and
completed a second draft of a humor travel book (working title: 48-State Odyssey).

Most employers and employees keep annual performance reviews private. My employer insists I display mine to the world as a service to other writers. May all of us who create written universes have a prolific and successful 2026. That’s the New Year’s wish of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 14, 2025Poseidon's ScribePermalink 2 Comments

Read What Happened When I Interviewed the Hero’s Sidekick

During my years of blogging, I’ve interviewed plenty of writers and a few editors. However, I’ve never interviewed a sidekick. Today, I did just that.

Interview

Poseidon’s Scribe: Welcome to my blog.

Sidekick: Thanks, but you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not a sidekick.

P.S.: Really? I thought you were. What are you?

S: I’m the main character, the protagonist, the hero.

P.S.: Ah, so you’re the one driving the plot forward.

S: I guess, sort of.

P.S.: You’re standing in someone’s shadow. Who’s that?

S: That’s my sidekick.

P.S.: I see. But you’re the one who seems to be assisting that person a lot.

S: Yeah. My sidekick really needs help.

P.S.: I’ve heard, of the two of you, you’ve got the better sense of humor. Is that true?

S: Yes. Authors always give the hero the best lines.

P.S.: Ah. From what I’ve seen, that person confides in you, trusts you. You act like the person’s conscience.

S: Yup. My sidekick bounces ideas off of me, usually bad ones, and I have to be the one coming up with the right plan. My sidekick probably couldn’t survive without me.

P.S.: You two seem to complement each other, with many opposite personality traits.

S: Well, they say opposites attract.

P.S.: True. Tell me, at the end of the story, which of you will get the most credit for resolving the major conflict—you, or the person in whose shadow you’re standing?

S: Um…well…I guess…Is it possible that I’m not the hero? That I’m really just a sidekick?

P.S.: Never say just a sidekick. You’re vital to the story. As you said, the hero would be lost without you. I’d say that hero is lucky to have a pal, a sounding board, a loyal ally like you.

S: Yeah. Lucky to have me. That’s right.

Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you for stopping by today. I know you have to get back to supporting and looking after the hero.

Sidekick: Believe me, it’s a full-time job. That is one flawed character.

Nobody Thinks They’re the Sidekick

In the 2005 movie Sahara, Al Giordino is Dirk Pitt’s sidekick. When another character asks Al how long he and Dirk have been together, he says, “Kindergarten, college, Navy, NUMA. Poor guy’s always been in my shadow…Always the Al’s maid, never the Al.”

All along I thought I was the hero of my life’s story, but now I wonder if someone else’s sidekick is—

Poseidon’s Scribe