I’m Alpin (like owl-pen). I’ve been writing since before I molted into a human person. My dad and I used to trade each other stories, and I’ve been at it ever since.
Why no face?
I like my glowing pyramid, but I keep my face off the internet because I have wild dysphoria some days. Plus, I’m nonbinary! Not using my face takes away some of the snap judgements people make. If you use pronouns for me, they/them is easiest, although I’m sometimes partial to it.
What do you write?
Young Adult SFF. I’m obsessed with my current project, about a kid who fakes a superpower with engineering. But! I’ve got a stack of other projects that I churn through, and most of those are fantasy. I write about young people, identity, and weird stuff. I write about choices and fate. I write what I needed to read as a young human.
Wait, superpowers?
Oh heck yes. My AMM submission, Confessions of a SuperFake, is about a hotheaded Hispanic teenager who can build anything. At university, Lexus accidentally discovers the College of Heroic Aptitude, and engineers a fake superpower to sneak in. The story is about walking two paths, doing bad things for good reasons, good for bad, and how we live with ourselves straddling both sides of the proverbial coin. Plus, I was an engineer for a whiiiiile, and dude, building things is fun! I want to get young people, especially young queer people, interested in STEM fields. We belong, I swear.
Lex? Is this about Lex Luthor?
… Don’t rat me out, fam. No, this isn’t a Superman/Lex Luthor retelling exactly, but if I get to continue with a series, be prepared. SuperFake is, though, loosely based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
What is it like???
Try: If Iron Man was poor. If Susan Storm was evil. If the Terminator hadn’t quite learned to kill yet…
I need comparable titles!
Vicious (VE Schwab) for the villains
Lock-in (John Scalzi) for the genderless protagonists
Not Your Sidekick (C.B. Lee) for the wicked superhero, morally ambiguous government, & technopath ambiance.
That’s all for now! I’m looking forward to getting to know y’all, and I’m crossing my fingers for Nov. 19!
-ARG (Add me on Twitter!)
Alpin R Geist 