Newsletter #1 - Introductions and Cheese ~ Verge Publishing

Hello! My name is Paul James Keyes, Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror author, and this is my newsletter.

I write about being an author and give book recommendations from time to time, but mostly, I just fill these newsletters with subjects that interest me: Cutting Edge Science & Technology, Futurology, AI, Robotics, Psychology & Mind Hacking, and much more across my vast range of fascinations. As both a fiction & science writer, I’m constantly researching a lot of different fields, and I’m quite good at explaining complicated concepts in accessible ways.

With this first introduction, I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself and share with you some personal insights to give you a taste of the kind of messages you can look forward to receiving from this newsletter in the future.

First off, who am I? My name’s Paul; I’m 35; a father; a husband in an interracial marriage to an amazing Native American woman; I’m a software developer; a science & technology enthusiast/writer; a fantasy lover; I’m a novelist with thousands of pages under my belt—that’s six books across two series, so far!

I’m a free-thinker who believes that change is necessary for a successful future. I believe there are answers to our society’s problems—that vast change is required despite the difficulty of implementation, rather than the stagnation and old ways of thinking that are currently driving society. All of my views are based in logic, science, and possibly most importantly: Empathy.

As a writer I am constantly conceiving of, inhabiting, and then embodying the minds and “souls” of my characters to deliver faithful reproductions of life to my audience. With this comes the ability to see things from many different perspectives.

I grew up well-traveled—and I know how fortunate I am to have had such an upbringing. I attended the University of Washington and obtained degrees in both creative writing and economics. When there’s a problem, I like to dig deep to its root. I am a student of human nature, inter-culturalism, philosophy and so much more as my interests inevitably wander with my writing and research.

With this newsletter, I will share with you my musings on many topics.

The next few include:

How I worked with a police psychologist for over a year to develop my characters
The ‘Stoned Ape’ theory of the evolution of man
A critical look at Avatar: The Way of Water
A new cutting edge technology that can broadcast the “sound” of a drug straight into your brain
A piece about how Artificial Intelligence may soon steal most of our jobs

And much much more! Ultimately, what interests me is dissecting what it means to be human in this wide and wacky world. I believe deeply in inclusion, equality, and respect.

For now, I’ll leave you with an original poem:

How Do We Know What We Know?

Not as individuals
Rather, a collective
Someone ate that cheese

That very first cheese

They didn’t know if they would die
I hope you never have to experience that
hunger

To risk it all for a bite
of unknown

Spoiled milk stored in a goat’s stomach
It turned hard and became storable
Someone took that bite
What was its smell?
Funk beyond funk in a cheeseless world

Now you sprinkle that crap on everything

But ponder this:

How many experiments did not end so cheesily?🧀