Meet Warby Picus, Author of Sky Pride

I let the intrusive thoughts escape, but I make them work for it. It’s very satisfying.

My mind is an anything drawer- an untidy place where things are swept because they might, one day, be needed. Like Vermont legislating a right to line dry your laundry, or the curious maritime activities of the Knights Hospitaller, how to fold a Millwall Brick out of a tabloid, and the way Auguste Escoffier invented restaurants you could take your wife to. You don’t need it now, but you will probably need it one day, right? You’d regret it if you needed it and didn’t have it.

The drawer is quite jammed with things. It gets stuck. Sometimes I rattle and shake it, jimmy it and shim it, trying to dislodge whatever is holding it shut, and a story springs out. Like this one.

I’m Warby Picus, someone whose books can be described as “The author taking a fantasy concept far, far too seriously.” I’ve been reading fantasy and science fiction since I was ten, wandering from the Shire and Oz to stranger lands. When I read Xianxia, Chinese Daoist-inspired fantasy, I thought, “Wow! That’s awesome! But what if they actually went back to the original sources, instead of just borrowing Daoism for flavor?” Then I rattled the anything drawer and wrote Sky Pride. I am so grateful and humbled that you are reading it now, and really hope you enjoy it.

I’m not on social media, as there are entirely too many things jamming up the everything drawer already, but by all means, find me on Royal Road or my Patreon. Both have very lively comment sections, and we’d love to have you join!

-Warby