Podcast appearance
I joined Akinsote Adewale on the Health Fact podcast for a conversation that ranged wider than I expected: resilience, how a writing practice actually survives a distracting world, neurodivergence and the double edge of a diagnosis, what attention-harvesting platforms do to us, and addiction. It runs about twenty-two minutes.
Listen to the episode: Resilience, Creativity & Staying Focused in a Distracting World
From the conversation
On cautionary utopias
“I write science fiction that is meant to depict a cautionary utopia. It imagines different paths our history may have taken and different futures that we may end up in. And I always try to put resilience at the heart of the characters that I write because I think that when we look to fiction, we look for models of people who can move through the world even when the world is very difficult and find some reason to keep going.”
On rigged systems
On being wired differently
On AI and the creative line
“I try to keep a hacker mentality alive when I’m using these different platforms and technologies … I will never use generative AI in my writing. It’s just a flat no for me. It’s a hard stop. But I will use it to plan my schedule, to manage my time and my tasks. And so I have to police that line … using the platforms or the technologies with a clear intent, with strong guidelines, and with a skeptic’s eye.”
On the writing habit
“When things are working well for me, I am putting aside time dedicated to writing and making it the first thing that I do during the work day. And I’m reminding myself that it’s a long journey, that the best way to go about it is to take bites out of the apple and not try to eat it all at once.”
On addiction
“Addiction is compulsive … It is a pattern that becomes very hard to break. I was a smoker for more than a decade. And quitting nicotine was so hard, because it became part of almost every thought during the day.”
Ten years, four books
On finishing the quartet
“It’s been 10 years since Broken Mirror came out. And this year I’m finishing the final book in the quartet. So Broken Mirror is the first book. It was followed by Tortured Echoes, then Altered Bodies. And now in October 2026, I’m bringing out Toxic Medicine … I can now tell my readers, hey, I’ve delivered this to you. This is a full story: beginning, middle and end.”
Toxic Medicine, the fourth and final book in the Resonant Earth quartet, arrives October 14, 2026.
Listen + keep in touch
Thank you to Akinsote Adewale and the Health Fact podcast for a conversation about resilience, focus, and staying human around our technology. Listen to the full episode here.
New to the series? Start the Resonant Earth quartet with the free prequel novella Believe and Live at codysisco.com, and join the newsletter to hear first when Toxic Medicine arrives this October.