Dear Reader,
I’m Coen D. Needell. I write stories sometimes. This is where they’ll be posted. I mostly write weird fiction, but I dabble in comedic writing too. Sometimes, if I can’t think of anything good, I’ll write non-fiction. The goal is to produce something once a week, published Sundays at 4:00 central time. Currently my life is dominated by Grad School. This writing-experiment is intended to be a means of relief. As such there is no real intended audience. That being said, most of my stories are not appropriate for small children. They often deal frankly with death, the frailty of biological life, question the absurdity of being, or include a lot of euphemisms for sex.
In college I studied physics, economics, and the philosophy of science. A lot of this technical influence comes out in my work. I apologize in advance. If I post non-fiction, it will be in the philosophical realm, and probably have to do with abstract mathematics, or computer science. If I discuss politics or current affairs it will be only in the abstract. My graduate program is in ‘Computational Social Science’, so that sort of thing will be on my mind.
Most of my short stories are intended to explore a specific emotion, usually one which is more complicated than what we usually experience. This is intended to mesh with the goals of this project. Currently I have two on-going collections which take place in different universes (but are vaguely linked). These are ‘There are Things Greater Than One’s Self’ which is made up of weird short stories taking place in the mysterious city of Shaw’s Hill, and ‘Tales from the Stream’, a collection of mercenary misadventures in a fantastical universe. If you like stories about endless libraries and birds that only sing in D minor, try the first. If you like anthropomorphic deer and Seinfeldian conversation try the second.
Happy hunting, au revoir, and stay warm out there, the universe is mostly cold and empty, and I don’t know which part of it you’re in.
Coen D. Needell
Tales and Things 