Blazing Reader,

On Wednesday, my son and stepsons went to see a matinee showing of Project Hail Mary at a movie theatre in Helmond (a city near the Dutch village where we reside). I skipped the dark cinema for the sunny moat-side lawn of the thirteenth-century castle across the street, where I did paper edits of my forthcoming novel, COVID Disobedience — a story about a baker who tries to help a girl quarantined to her room in 2020, inspired by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau and his refusal to pay the poll tax in 1846.

While at Helmond Castle, I filmed this short video, where I present a working cover concept for the novel, give an update of where I'm at in the (so far) eighteenth-month-long writing process and share some of what's coming in its pages:

You can watch it on YouTube, Rumble, BitChute, and X.

If you enjoy it, please like and share it.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.