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Review of Untold Night and Day, by Bae Suah

October 9, 2025

I’ve been meaning to write this review of Untold Night and Day by the Korean author Bae Suah a long, long time. Until now I hesitated, the reason being I didn’t feel it’s the kind of book that can be easily described (let alone reviewed) with words. I felt I needed something else – literally another work of art; keep reading! – to properly express what a masterpiece this short novel is.

You see, Untold Night and Day is so out of the ordinary that it utterly defies traditional categories of literary criticism. Genre? Plot? Characters? These concepts break down when dealing with such a masterpiece, such an authentic writers’ book.

I’ll try anyway. Just as a sign of respect toward Bae Suah, who gave the world such a stunning piece of art.

Suffice to say, I’ve read it five times already in less than three years and will surely repeat it again. It’s the kind of book that actually demands such a thing.

Untold Night and Day, image of Seoul, Korea.

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Sleeping in the City of Abandoned Dreams

October 3, 2025

Writing

art, book, creativity, fiction, literature, writing

Sleeping in the City of Abandoned Dreams is a short novel I recently wrote. It took me exactly 10 days to go from “blank page” to “edited, ready for publishing”. Of course this is unusual even by my standards (writing short, abstract, poetic fiction).

What made this possible – and at the same time very easy and pleasurable – was a concordance between methodology and subject matter.

Sleeping in the City of Abandoned Dreams is probably the most free-styling, artistic kind of work I’ve written that still counts as prose. I certainly can detect an evolution in my literary production, with novels like The Storytelling Cat being far more abstract, artistic, poetic than my earlier works.

So where does Sleeping in the City of Abandoned Dreams sit in all that? Let me explain…

Sleeping in the City of Abandoned Dreams. Book cover art. — Cover art by yours truly. The color palette is not accidental, by the way…

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How to Be a Fiction Writer in the AI Era

September 24, 2025

Fiction, Society

computer, creativity, fiction, literature, society, writing

Virtually all of my fiction writing advice focuses on art: It’s quality writing I care about, not marketing or how to make money with one’s fiction. Nonetheless, my posts still (even if indirectly) also explore marketing repercussions. Today’s topic, revolving around how to be a fiction writer in the AI era, is no exception.

At the same time, however, there is a subtle but important difference.

Whereas in other posts – see, for instance, my post on fantasy fiction – I basically argue that one should write for the art and forget about monetary concerns, when it comes to fiction writing and AI there is a different argument I will be presenting, which boils down to this:

Write well (also) because of marketing considerations.

In other words, in this brave new world where one can “write” a “narrative” (quotation marks necessary) in a matter of an hour or two, publishing an entire series in a single day, it becomes more important than ever to focus on the quality – and above all, the authenticity – of what you write.

writer in ai era. photo of street artist. — Though there is always an “intended audience” element involved in art, true art is not made for anyone but one’s self. The audience is only an accident. This ideological approach is even more important if you’re a fiction writer in the AI era, an era brimming with mediocrity and ignorance.

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