Looking Back—and Looking Ahead to 2026
Every year leaves a residue. Some years burn clean. Others linger like smoke in wool coats and old notebooks. This past year was quieter on the surface, louder underneath—less about spectacle, more about laying stone where others only sketch foundations.
The Year Behind Me
This year was about restoration and resolve.
Whiskey and the Autumn Wind continued to find its readers—the ones who understand that poetry doesn’t shout, it waits. It found those who have stood outside in October air with a glass in hand and a past they can’t quite outrun. The conversation around that book didn’t end; it deepened, settling into letters, quiet messages, and moments of recognition shared between strangers who weren’t strangers after all.
This was also the year I released my first full-length memoir, The Quiet After the Sirens. That book asked more of me than poetry ever has. It required honesty without armor, memory without embellishment, and the courage to set down experiences that once lived only in silence. Writing it was an act of reckoning; releasing it was an act of letting go.
Along the way, I met new people who reminded me why stories matter, and I lost some good ones who had walked beside me for a while. Both experiences left their mark. This year taught me that growth doesn’t always come from accumulation—sometimes it comes from subtraction, from learning how to move forward without carrying everything with you.
Beyond light marketing and tending to existing work, this was not a year of excess output. It was a year of sharpening tools, studying the craft, and choosing what matters. Of learning when to speak, when to listen, and when to simply keep going.
What Comes Next in 2026
The wind shifts.
In 2026, Whiskey and the Winter Wind will be published—the natural sequel, colder and more reflective, carrying forward the themes of endurance, solitude, and weathered masculinity that began in autumn. Winter asks harder questions. This book answers them honestly.
The Raven finally stands as it is meant to stand. The cover—long overdue for correction—is fixed, and with it came a quiet sense of rightness. Sometimes a book isn’t finished when it’s published. Sometimes it’s finished when it finally looks like itself.
But poetry will not be the center of gravity.
That role belongs to The Gemini Project.
This novel is more than a book—it is my MFA thesis and the culmination of years of research, study, discipline, intent and rabbit holes. Rooted in the events of September 11, 2001, The Gemini Project does not retell history. It interrogates it.
The story follows John Orion—a CIA operative and decorated Army veteran—whose world collapses when his fiancée dies in the attacks. When a rogue journalist and former DST agent uncovers evidence suggesting the truth was buried beneath narrative and power, Orion steps off the grid and into a war no uniform can protect him from.
From a hidden command center in Doha to a shadow network of exiled operatives and whistleblowers known as the Recon Intelligence Group, The Gemini Project explores what happens when loyalty collides with truth—and when the enemy wears a familiar face.
This is a story about grief weaponized, patriotism questioned, and the cost of asking forbidden questions in a world built on managed lies.
By graduation, the goal is clear:
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A publish-ready novel
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A strong path toward representation
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A working knowledge of publishing, marketing, and literary positioning
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And an online certificate in teaching creative writing, extending the work beyond the page and into classrooms and communities
The Road Forward
I’ve never believed in rushing the work. I believe in earning it.
2026 will not be loud—but it will be decisive. Fewer distractions. Sharper focus. Deeper commitment to stories that matter, even when they unsettle.
The whiskey is still on the table.
The wind is colder now.
And the work—finally—knows where it’s going.
— Richard White