Welcome

My fiction and updates reach your inbox once a month. I love sharing extraordinary stories (fiction short and long) about ordinary Americans. Good stories don’t, and shouldn’t have to, conform to dominant aesthetics and politics.

I am the author of the novels October (2023 quarterfinalist for Coveryfly’s ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition), In Another Sun, and Pepper’s Ghost (2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist for Contemporary Fiction) and the short-story collections Inroads and A Fine Day Will Burn Through.

Producing and promoting stories requires time and money. Independent authors like me are often overlooked because of trends, sales, and genre. I do not answer to a board or a corporation and have no interest in being with the “right people” and saying the “right phrases.”

But this is where you help. Your book purchases and paid Substack subscriptions tilt the challenges of business and creating stories in my favor. A unique, well-told, well-written story not only illuminates experiences, similarities, differences, joys, pains, fears, and hopes about our short time here on Earth, but it also attracts an audience that, like a snowball, attracts a larger audience, resources, and opportunities—all of which lifts the audience *and* the writer.

My ideal reader is the individual (no matter age, gender, color, creed, number of degrees, or no degree) who invests in American culture—nooks and crannies and warts and all; loves plot, character, theme, and imagination; and longs to be entertained like the root sense of that word—to be held by. This everyday reader may be a farmer, work in an office, or clean the office.

I love shaping and sharing my stories that, be they novels or short fiction, focus on ordinary Americans real and imagined and offer an alternative to what’s popular, what’s prescribed, or what’s assumed you’ll consume. I hand-make everything you read—from writing and editing the stories; to book interiors and covers; to online content and marketing materials. I have a long-standing interest and background in science, classical learning, and making stuff.

Thank you for your time, supporting my work, and spreading the word.

Why subscribe?

As a paid subscriber, you’ll receive my newsletter and access to new stories. Your paid Substack subscriptions (and book purchases) help me produce and promote my work. Paid subscribers also have access to the archive.

As a free subscriber, you’ll receive in your email inbox my newsletter and previews of new stories.

Subscribe today and never miss a story or an update. Thank you for your support, and please spread the word.

See y’all soon.

William Auten