STORYGRAMS!by Alex Smith

Hello! I’m Alex Smith, aka Alexoteric. I’ve started a new project and I’m really excited about it! I’m calling it StoryGram, the concept is simple: I write you a personalized sci-fi or fantasy short story for a small fee! Yup, it’s a fully personalized story that I write catering to the general (or exact?) vibe, aesthetic, and mood you’re looking for. These stories can even feature yourself or your friends in heroic, butt-kicking roles! I’ve written folks as intergalactic cryptid zookeepers, dystopian dominatrixes, time traveling steampunks, and magic wielding social workers! The stories make great, impactful, thoughtful gifts for friends, and what’s more, you’re the sole distributor of this story for a whole year! There’s 3 tiers for this great gift, so get your Sci-Fi StoryGram today!

PRICES:

1 Short Story, digital only, at least 900 Words: $100

1 Short Story turned into a zine/book with art by Alex (plus digital): $200

1 Short story read with backing music by Alex, zine/book, digital: $300

about me:
Alex Smith(hey, that’s me!) is a sci-fi writer and culture and arts journalist (Bandcamp, Pitchfork, The Key, artblog), a recipient of the Pew Arts Grant, and a champion of genre work going beyond “inclusion” and “diversity”; mywork is incendiary blasts of chaos, wonder, socio-politics and joy.  You may know me as an artist (collage work, zines, fliers, album covers) or a musician (in punk and experimental bands like Solarized, Spectral Forces and Rainbow Crimes). My sci-fi/super-hero/cyberpunk/afrofuturist mash-up story collection ARKDUST is available from Rosarium Publishing. Follow me: @Alexoteric on instagram! order the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Arkdust-Alex-Smith/dp/173263887X

to order your StoryGram, contact Alex at theyarebirds@gmail.com (best to copy and paste) or on instagram @Alexoteric 

to donate (gotta support the arts!): @Alexoteric on venmo, theyarebirds@gmail.com on PayPal

T E S T I MON I ALS:

 "I hired Alex to write a short story for my dear friend and colleague when she moved on to another job. My friend loves fantasy and science fiction, and does amazing work on behalf of youth in foster care. Alex wrote a story inspired by her as a main character, and he wove a powerful tale with a strong female character that deeply spoke to my friend. It was a special, unique, powerful gift that really reflected the amazing human my friend is and I would definitely give a gift like this again!" -- Katy Otto/Exotic Fever Records

"I commissioned a short story from Alex Smith, and in under 3k words I was delivered to a world that had everything I asked for and more than I could have ever imagined. It had everything I love about Alex's stories - unabashed queerness, nostalgia, vibrant world building, a strong emotional core - wrapped up in a love letter to the genres of sci-fi and fantasy. The care that Alex took in crafting this story shone through in his expert writing technique. I gave him a lot of leeway for the interpretation of the vibes that I was looking for, but he still managed to make it feel incredibly personal. Needless to say, I highly recommend commissioning him for a gorgeous story of your own. I know I will treasure mine for a long time to come." --Ashley Acevedo

"Alex builds gritty, polyphonically dense worlds where queer, largely BIPOC characters chase erotics and resistance through a dystopian near-future particular to Philadelphia. His writing style has surreal time-suspended qualities like Samuel Delaney and Sun Ra, the rhythmic linguistics of Amiri Baraka, and spinning galaxies of words like the poet Will Alexander. I asked Alex to write something about mutual aid, communal living, and a particular kind of erotic tension. He delivered something fully realized that took my prompts into consideration and was entirely specific to his imaginative universe. " -- Levi Bentley