About M. Jon Conrad

I am Jon Conrad. The "M" is for Malcolm but I've always gone by Jon.

I write the stories that I most want to read. My stories are about ordinary people. They are people like you and me just going about their day when something extraordinary happens.

Why I Write

I've always been a writer and I've never been a writer. I walked through most of my life with ideas of writing a book but never actually doing it. I've been a story teller for as long as I can remember though. I can often be observed in social situations, telling stories of my more rambunctious youth or any of a number of wild stories I've collected in my years of barely tethered life. I have figured out that the same instinct that drives a kid to crack jokes at the back of a classroom is the one that drives a writer to a blank page: a desire to make someone, somewhere, lean a little closer.

The stories we tell are more than just an escape from the world. They give us a way to look back at it. Whether the setting is a vibrant neon technoscape, the cold hard confines of an interplanetary warship, or even a filthy littered back alley of a crowded metropolis, our curiosity of these imagined people keep us coming back.

I write because I want to make readers furiously turn pages, then catch themselves thinking about the story long after the last one.

What You’ll Find Here

• The Library — the stories themselves. Novels, novellas, short stories, and the occasional serial installment.
• The Blog — writing updates, release notes, the occasional worldbuilding essay, and the work-in-progress journal.
• The Codex — a companion guide to the worlds, people, organisations, and technology behind the stories. Read it on its own, or alongside the books.

If you’re new here, the Library’s Featured Read is the best place to start.

Current Projects

Most of my current projects are written in The Blacksmith Literary Universe. It is a vision of Humanity after a great cataclysm and the tension that exists between a desire for autonomy and structure. It explores all of that which makes us beautiful... and ugly, all of the evils we are capable of and all of our curiosities.

• Panopticon : a novel about competing ideals, neither wrong nor right and what people will do to stand for those ideals.
• The Lightyears Between Us : is a novella about an author who is drawn into a story not unlike the sort she writes of.

These are works in progress. Some are further along than others. The Library tracks what’s actually finished and shareable.

A Note From Jon

If any of that sounds like the kind of thing you’d like to read, start with whatever catches your eye in the Library, or subscribe and I’ll let you know when the next story is ready.

Thanks for being here.