Big news! I'm visiting the Idaho Falls Public Library on January 13 and I'd love to see you there! I will be discussing some of the themes in my science fiction disabilities novel On Borrowed Wings, as well as introducing my other books. Come ask me questions, get books signed, and exchange Pokémon GO friend codes with me!

I'm hoping to have paperbacks on sale at the event, but no guarantees, so if you want a book signed, I advise buying it from Amazon ahead of time.

I'm very excited to share my work with the Idaho Falls community and I'm very grateful to the library for letting me put on this event. I hope everyone has a great time!

Wishing everyone a blessed and joyful Christmas, a wonderful holiday season, and a good year ahead!

Featured dinos are Pachyrhinosaurus and an unnamed troodontid from the Prince Creek Formation in northern Alaska. Even back in the balmy Cretaceous, those polar regions could get a bit chilly in winter!

By the way, I have an announcement to share soon, so keep an eye out for some news coming in the next few days!

 

Another sketch from the Idaho Museum of Natural History! Went for a portrait view of Oryctodromeus this time.

Crunchy Chip Cookie from Cookie Run: Kingdom--an epic bro and a great wolf dad.

Had another sketching day at the Idaho Museum of Natural History! Here's Oryctodromeus, Idaho's state dinosaur, and interestingly enough the only (currently) named dinosaur from Idaho. Quite a few dinosaur remains have been found in the Wayan Formation of eastern Idaho, but they're mostly so fragmentary that not enough material has been found yet to establish any new species. Except for the oryctos which were evidently everywhere.

Oryctodromeus means "digging runner", and most illustrations show their burrowing habits, so I thought I'd draw one living up to the other half of its name and running! They actually had rather long tails that this illustration doesn't do justice, but I ran out of room on the paper.

Finished up another piece of paleoart for Wikipedia. Here's Tujiaaspis, a recently described galeaspid (jawless fish) that's notable for having two long ventral fins running the length of its body, giving insights into the evolution of fins. Also galeaspids are adorable.

I actually can't stop drawing Cookie Run characters. Here's detective novelist Linzer Cookie from the new Cookie Run: Kingdom update.

I needed a break from paleoart, so here's Hollyberry Cookie from Cookie Run: Kingdom in her awesome armor from the Legend of the Red Dragon storyline.

Did another illustration for Wikipedia--this time for Dorypterus, a Permian fish whose previous illustration on the wiki was a really cursed-looking (and more importantly inaccurate) drawing from like 1907.

(It makes me kinda happy that if you do an internet image search for Dorypterus, this image is actually one of the top results.)

The Holly and the Ivy, Chapter 2

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

A powerful smell, acrid and rich, filled Nan’s sinuses. She sneezed—and her eyes flew open.

The world around her was bright and unfocused, but pungent aromas filled the air and something crackled and popped nearby. And she felt warm, positively hot, wrapped in an enormous fur blanket.

The blanket removed a pawful of leaves from under Nan’s nose. “Ah, there you are,” it said in a deep, husky voice.

Nan blinked and looked up into the green eyes of the dusky-furred female Werelupe that held her. Nearby sat a lighter-furred male, inspecting the chunk of meat that roasted over their fire in a forest clearing. At the sound of the female’s voice, he glanced over and grinned toothily. “It is good that we found you, little one.”

Nan knew these two creatures well. After their king had saved her village from a Monocerous the previous year, he had dubbed Kirven and Nusa the stewards of Caxton Bank.

The Techo broke into a grin. Monsters had indeed found her, much to her advantage. “I’m glad, too,” she said. “But—“ She looked at them in confusion. “I’m supposed to be asleep.”

Did more sketching at the Idaho Museum of Natural History! One of the things I've really been enjoying about sketching fossils from... erm... life...? is the ability to actually view them in three dimensions instead of being relegated to whatever angles are represented in imagery available online. It gives me the ability to pose them much more dynamically and understand their physiology better.

Maybe I made their tyrannosauroid a bit too happy, but I just can't help but imagine him living his best dino life.

Idaho's giant oviraptorosaur! (I know the neck is a little wonky, I was trying to fit the whole thing on the page and maybe didn't succeed.) I suspect these guys had a little more of an upright posture than the average theropod, because with those relatively short tails, spending all their time with their necks extended more horizontally may have presented some balance issues. Their tails were also probably heavily feathered, which helped to provide more weight to counterbalance the front end.

Took a stab (pun intended) at Dinogorgon, one of the species featured on the museum's cool timeline wall that gives a great picture of the history of Earth's biota over the past 400 million years. I've drawn plenty of gorgonopsids before, but Dinogorgon is a rubidgeine, a subclass that were more heavily built. They also have these wide bony flanges on either side of their skulls that probably helped anchor powerful jaw muscles because they were bitey boys. I probably make my gorgonopsids look too mammalian but that's okay because it's cute.*

*This is why I am banned from professional paleoart.**

**Just kidding. I think.

The Holly and the Ivy, Chapter 1

Time for a little holiday cheer!

I really enjoyed writing the Caxton Bank chapters of Worth Searching For, and it made me want to do more with the characters. I thought it would be fun to write a Christmas Giving Day story that draws less from the Victorian Christmas traditions that much of modern celebration is based on, and more from medieval British customs and folklore, as befitting the Meridell region. "The Holly and the Ivy" (the carol) is based on very old English Christmas traditions, so it seemed suitable as the inspiration for this tale.

I also wanted to follow up on what was established about Caxton Bank in Worth Searching For, and show that although the Werelupes started off on the wrong foot with their vassals, their relationship has grown and improved, and it's making everyone's lives better.

I admit I was pleasantly surprised by how little I actually had to edit this one to bring it up to speed with my newer writing. Aside from just a handful of minor prose fixes, I also slightly altered a few details to fall in line with what I later established as canon.

Have a happy and blessed holiday season, everybody!

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

“Don’t go outside in winter,” Nan’s mother always told her. “There’s a reason most Techos are born on Mystery Island instead of the woods of Meridell.”

“But Mum!” Nan would say, tracing pictures on their fogged-up windows with her blue reptilian fingers. “All the other children get to play in the snow!”

Her yellow Uni mother would then pause from her mending and stoke the fire. “That’s because they’re warm-blooded, love. If you get too cold you’ll fall into torpor, and you won’t wake up ‘til Running.”

“Running?! But I’ll sleep right through Giving Day!” That was all the incentive Nan needed to stay in their cottage until the snows stopped. And that was how winter went in the little hamlet of Caxton Bank, nestled in the foothills of the Werelupe Woods.

Most years, anyway.