I wrote Salt and Static because I was done whispering.
I was born and raised in West Texas, where the gospel is louder than the truth and the heat will peel your skin and your dignity if you let it. I grew up gay in a culture that weaponized silence, shame, and scripture. I survived conversion therapy. I survived being told I was broken — not metaphorically, not abstractly, but literally — that my very existence needed to be fixed.
“Every line of code is a prayer, a middle finger to the sky. And if God’s real, he’s a fucking tyrant.”
This book is what happened when I stopped trying to be fixed and started getting angry.
Salt and Static is a dystopian thriller, yes. It’s got hackers and corrupt theocrats and cyber-intrigue and black market deals in dusty truck stops. But underneath the suspense, it’s a deeply personal scream — one directed at the kind of faith that traded humility for political power. It’s about what happens when belief becomes a bludgeon, when pulpits hold hands with governments, and people like me become collateral damage.
The fictional Republic of Texas isn’t as fictional as it should be. I’ve walked those church halls. I’ve sat in Sunday school classes where queerness was treated as a curse. I’ve lived through state-sanctioned policies that pushed LGBTQ+ people deeper into the closet, the shadows, or the grave. I’ve seen the “Christian values” used to justify denying trans patients healthcare. I’ve heard politicians blame drag queens for power outages. And I’ve watched queer kids disappear from their communities because their love was the wrong kind.
“They preach austerity while feasting behind silk curtains. They call it sacrifice. I call it theater.”
This novel is set in a near-future Abilene, in a seceded Texas theocracy where purity is currency and surveillance is scripture. But really, it’s about the Texas I already know — just turned up to eleven. It follows Nikolai Young, a former preacher’s son turned black-hat hacker, and Kylo Price, a battle-scarred former Navy SEAL, as they fight a regime that has codified religion into authoritarian law. Together, they fall in love while planning a digital rebellion that could either expose the state’s monstrous secrets or destroy them both.
At its core, Salt and Static is about resilience. About chosen family. About queer rage and queer tenderness. About what happens when you’ve lost everything and still decide to burn the whole goddamn system down so no one else has to suffer the way you did.
This isn’t just a cautionary tale. It’s a love letter to the ones who survived.
To the queer kids in the South still hiding their glitter.
To the ones who learned to code instead of confess.
To the ones who had to build their own family, their own faith, their own future.
I didn’t write this book to be polite. I wrote it because silence was killing us.
Now, I write to make noise.
You can read Salt and Static here.
And if you feel seen — or rattled — good. That’s the point.