kmalexander

[kmalexander]

No (New) Cosmic Horror Gift Guide This Year

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Henry Daubrez (Belgo-Spanish, based Belgium) - Anxiety, 2024, Paintings: Digital Art

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[kmalexander]

America, Vote 🗳

It’s that time again when citizens in the US go to the polls and make their voices heard. That means this is also the time when I write a quick post encouraging you to participate. It’s important! As Thomas Jefferson once said, we’re not governed by the majority. We’re governed by the majority who participate. (I’m paraphrasing a bit. I quoted him in 2020.) Here in Washington State, I voted long…

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A Map of the Island of Biringan

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Uly Pupdate, Autumn 2024

This has been a long and strange year. Through all the ups and downs, one of the constant highlights has been our newest family member, our sheepadoodle, Ulysses. I introduced him back in May, and then our chaotic 2024 summer happened. As autumn settles in and things have quieted down, I realized last night that it has been far too long since I shared a Uly update—or a pupdate. Let’s rectify…

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Everything's A Cover

There’s a rock I keep seeing many science fiction and fantasy fans crash against: adaptation. For some reason, fans think any adaptation must fit within the narrow confines of their own experience. Any new announcement of a beloved property is met with equal parts excitement and trepidation—from soundtracks to cast lists, fans’ grievances over creative decisions are long, exhausting, and…

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Well, This is Obnoxious

A funny thing happened when I shared Hogenburg—my latest brush set—on Instagram the other day. Instagram, in all its divine authority, added a little tag at the top where you’d typically see location information. That tag read: “AI info.” Neat. Thanks, Zuckerberg. I thought that odd. IG now lets you flag if AI was used in a post. But I didn’t use AI, so there was no reason I would flag this…

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Hogenburg: A Free 16th Century Urban Cartography Brush Set for Fantasy City Maps

Mapping a city, fantastical or otherwise, can be a difficult challenge. Nature’s randomness and organic qualities are replaced by a rigid structure influenced by centuries of history shaped by war, religion, politics, and culture. No two roads are the same, no grid is identical, and no block looks like another block. In modern maps, we’ve abstracted the city into patterns, making each city feel…

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Meet the Flock

When we purchased our new house, we inherited a flock of chickens: eleven hens and one surly rooster. We didn’t necessarily want chickens. We could have turned them down, but it felt mean to remove them from their home. So, we brought the flock along for this ride. And honestly, it’s been great. They’re an absolute delight, and now we have a dozen new pets. On top of all of this, the bonus of…

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Becoming Islanders

I live on Vashon now—well, technically, Maury Island, but ever since they built the isthmus in 1913, it’s all kinda one island. K. M. Alexander, Kari-Lise Alexander, and Ulysses After a fraught spring, the event we had been building towards finally happened. Kari-Lise and I have a new home—hopefully, our forever home—on the largest island in Puget Sound. (It’s not quite thirty-seven square…

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Meet Ulysses

I got a new dog, and he's cute as a button. Meet Ulysses, or as we call him, Uly. He's a sweetheart.

T. S. Eliot was right; April really is the cruelest month. Thankfully, May is already a significant improvement. Meet the newest Alexander, Ulysses, our twelve-month-old sheepadoodle. (We call him Uly.) He’s super sweet and very silly. Already clocking in at over thirty pounds, we figure he’s going to be a big boy. I’ll write more about the chaos of the last few weeks when I can wrap my mind…

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Mark Vega aka Darkened M00d (based Queens, NYC, NY, USA) - Everyone I know, goes away…in the End, Digital Art

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My Times Are A-Changin'

It’s been quiet around here, and for that, I apologize. Kari-Lise and I have been prepping to list the house we’ve lived in for the last fourteen years for sale. Turns out that’s a lot of work! Over the last three days, we’ve painted our picket fence, touched up our house’s exterior paint, painted my office, power-washed the world, stained our enormous deck, cleaned up our yards, and taken many…

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We Need to Talk About Your Rivers

The “rule of cool” is a common piece of advice for artists. Let your imagination run wild. And that applies to fantasy as well. By its very nature, rules are meant to be broken. It’s part of the mystique. It’s why the genre can be so compelling. But to really break the rules effectively, it helps to have a solid comprehension of the underlying contexts. The rule of cool can backfire when we push…

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My Store is Going Offline

Wanted to post a quick housekeeping update. Kari-Lise and I are in the process of moving! As a result, I am taking my store temporarily offline. For those souls desperately seeking a signed copy of one of my books. Well, you’ll just have to wait a bit. Normally, I had boxes of books sitting in my office closet. But they are no longer there, having been moved into storage. Since we’ll be between…

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My Kingdom for an Injury Designation

As a statistics enthusiast and a guy who now regularly works out, I have fully embraced the data I get from my Apple Watch. I’m not alone. Go to a gym or any popular trail, and you’ll see everyone from runners to cyclists tracking their workouts on their smartwatches. I watched the US Olympic Marathon Trials today, and one of the announcers talked about the Strava runs from one of the competing…