hi. you've reached ʞ.cc, the "professional" home of lexi hale on the web. here you can find a choice selection of science fiction, fantasy, surreal horror, diatribes, jeremiads, and other writing.
my main project at the moment is Spirals, a collection of sci-fi serials set in the small but increasingly unstable galaxy of Haven. Spirals is part social fiction, part trashy romance, that explores culture clash, trauma and healing, power, submission, and conflict between deeply alien value systems. you can find an introduction to the setting at Overture, and if you like speculative fiction, you might also be interested in the Blood in the Water series, the first in my tentative foray into high(-ish) fantasy. it follows a deeply traumatized girl and her unexpected allies in her fight to survive political upheaval that is drastically changing the nature of her society — and painting a great big target on her back.
i care a lot about fighting the trend of cynicism, satire, and aloofness that has marked a lot of contemporary media, so i try very hard to take my own work seriously and approach writing from a place of sincerity and originality. i don’t really like comedy or satire so you won’t find much of it here. sadly, we are unfortunate enough to live in a time when many otherwise talented artists feel a responsibility to self-righteously stir up hatred, division, and self-loathing in european societies. i will have no part in this. while most of my work does focus on the stories of women (write what you know, as they say) i am nonetheless dedicated to telling stories that depict men respectfully and compassionately, that celebrate masculinity — and traditional femininity — instead of degrading it, that do not contribute to the ugly, evil narratives now pervading our culture that seem intended to convince women that our husbands, sons, and fathers are the great villains of our lives.
my goal as a writer is not propagandize for a cause, but to offer up visions of worlds that, while they have plenty of their own problems, are disconnected from the problems of our own. worlds where we can take a break from today’s ever-widening panoply of global nightmares and looming apocalypses. and, i dearly hope, worlds where readers can find bits of inspiration here and there for what they’ll go on to build in this world — and what we’ll someday build from the ashes and rubble of our once-great civilization. that’s my real dream. storytelling is about more than just entertainment, as Borges taught us: it‘s about showing people what isn’t, what might be, and what one day could be, for better or for worse. Tlön begins with the stroke of a pen.
my writing is also meant to be a reference point — to offer readers language, archetypes, and metaphors for patterns and possibilities still alien to western nations, in particular models for new kinds of interpersonal relationships that might fill certain lacunae in our culture & traditions.
there’s also a great deal of older writing that i host here, including a selection of the essays i’ve published over the years — some about art and culture, some about inane tech nonsense, some about fighting for the working class, and some about the culture war. i also operate a few twitter microfiction accounts that have their own websites, Approved News 6 and Substation 77. if you find anything you like, you may want to subscribe to my Atom feed or my newsletter.
finally, i have a few simple proofs-of-concept demonstrating abuse of programming or layout languages, which are listed on the essays page.
thanks for visiting and i hope you find something here worth your interest!
tracking notice: i use a very simple tracking mechanism to keep tabs on what pages of my site are being accessed. the stylesheet uses an @import directive to ping a remote server i control. it records your user agent, IP, and referrer only. there is no javascript involved, and absolutely no data is conveyed to foreign sites - all i'm interested in is what you're reading, so i can tell what people are reading and what series i should focus on developing. if you choose to disable this tracker, please drop me a note if you find anything on this site you would like to read more of!