Author Spotlight: Riley Odell

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.

Today: Riley Odell is an autistic writer and neurodiversity activist. He writes horror, comedy, and bizarro, and is the creator of Divergnt Realms, an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories about neurodivergence by neurodivergent authors. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his wife Jamie, and their two pet children. Find out more rileyodellwriter.com.

Thanks so much, Riley, for joining me!

J. Scott Coatsworth: When did you know you wanted to write, and when did you discover that you were good at it?

Riley Odell: I remember wanting to be a writer from a very young age. I started out writing comic strips inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, and Garfield, and wrote my first work of prose fiction at the age of twelve. When did I discover I was good at this? I don’t know, I still haven’t discovered any such thing. I’m horrible, people use my books as toilet paper and material for starting fires. Okay, but in all seriousness, as a teenager I shared comedic material I’d written with an online group I was part of at the time. Everyone thought it was hilarious and that made me think I might have a gift for writing humor. In 9^th grade, I won my middle school’s creative writing award, which served as another indicator that I had talent.

JSC: How would you describe your writing style/genre? 

RO: I write horror, bizarro (genre of the weird and absurd), and stories about autism in various genres. Divergent Realms: Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories About Neurodivergence most closely fits the latter category, but it’s a book I edited, not one that I wrote. The fourteen stories within are the products of various authors. 

JSC: Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre? If you write more than one, how do you balance them? 

RO: I write horror because reality is horror. I write bizarro because I love weird comedy, and it allows me to explore the horrors of reality through a more absurd/satiric lens. I write stories about autism because I’m autistic, and I get great meaning out of writing stories that reflect my personal experiences. It is also my hope that these stories and their characters can be helpful for autistic people who are struggling to find their way in the world. I’ve always been passionate about neurodiversity activism. That’s also why I put together and published Divergent Realms.

JSC: Are there underrepresented groups or ideas featured if your book? If so, discuss them. 

RO: That’s the whole idea behind Divergent Realms—to expand neurodiversity representation in fiction. I solicited work exclusively from neurodivergent authors with the stipulation that all the stories must feature neurodivergent characters. I wanted to create a book with perspectives that aren’t commonly represented in science fiction and fantasy.

JSC: Name the book you like most among all you’ve written, and tell us why.

RO: I’ll cheat here and name two. My favorite book among what I’ve released is Divergent Realms because, again, I believe very strongly in neurodiversity representation, and I think all the writers produced great stories. But as far as a book I actually wrote, it’s My Weird Nightmare Baby, published by Planet Bizarro Press. A story about an infantophobic man who’s forced to take care of a terrifying monster child, it’s my favorite combination of “dark” and “funny” that I’ve created. It explores themes of philosophical pessimism through absurdity and viciously satirical takedowns of largely unexamined social norms. 

JSC: How did you choose the topic for Divergent Realms?  

RO: I’ve always been an advocate for neurodivergent people, but the idea for anthology never occurred to me until 2022. I was looking at writing markets to submit my work to and I noticed that although publishers regularly host exclusive calls for fiction from BIPOC, LGBTQ, and women writers (all of which I greatly support), one minority group always gets overlooked—the neurodivergent. Many neurodivergent people struggle with executive dysfunction, focus issues, or other problems that can make writing a major struggle, which is why I believe exclusive calls for neurodivergent writers are very important. Bothered by the lack of such calls, I took the initiative and made one of my own.

JSC: What other artistic pursuits (if any) do you indulge in apart from writing? 

RO: I like making puzzle games. Ever heard of Notpr0n? It came out in 2004 and spawned an entire genre of “online riddle” games where clues are provided through images and text, and the player’s goal is to find a password that will take them to the next level—in most cases, by typing it in the url to be taken to a different page. Any hype the genre had pretty much died out by the time the 2010s rolled around, but some people are still out there making these types of games, including me. I made one called Regret that can be found at regretgame.com, and I’m currently finishing up another that I consider to be a major project alongside my writing endeavors. I’ve also created several strips of a webcomic called Superduds, but, well, it’s dumb. But that’s also kind of the point.

JSC: We know what you like to write, but what do you like to read in your free time, and why? 

 RO: I’ll read anything, but I especially like fantasy, science fiction, horror, and bizarro. Some of my favorite writers are Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks, Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, and Carlton Mellick III.

JSC: What’s in your fridge right now? 

RO: Human remains. Also, bagels. (Look, I’m joking about the bagels, okay? Please don’t call the police.)

JSC: What are you working on now, and what’s coming out next? Tell us about it!

RO: I’m working on finishing up several different projects at the moment. This year, I plan to release the following: 

–Shit, Love, and Burgers, a bizarro comedy about a man forced to work for a sociopathic fast food restaurant manager

–Murderland, a dark satire about gun violence in the United States

-The aforementioned puzzle game

-An unnamed collection of bizarro short stories 

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And now for Rileys latest new book: Divergent Realms:

Question your typical perception.

See beyond the normal you know.

Step into divergent realms.

Let this anthology of new and original short stories show you the fantastic and futuristic through a new lens.

A struggling father discovers why his autistic daughter becomes consumed with a virtual reality simulator in the wake of her mother’s death.

An android who can’t stop ruminating about her consciousness being trapped inside a machine for all eternity confronts her worst fear to stop a sentient AI.

Authorities deny a man with a distractible mind a position navigating a chaotic place outside space and time that provides access to other universes, only to realize he’s their only hope to recover their lost agents.

Divergent Realms showcases the wide spectrum of neurodiversity through the open worlds of speculative fiction. Written and edited by the neurodiverse themselves, these stories express a new side of ADHD, Autism, OCD, and more.

Experience an atypical reality and deepen your understanding of the world around you today!

Amazon

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Excerpt

EXCMother made me in a tube five artificial centuries after the end of the universe. An android like me is not born, but I went through childhood just the same, shedding my parts for new ones as I grew. Organic or artificial, Mother says sentient life must be eased into existence.

My name’s Alice Blue. Picked the surname myself. I like blue. I wear blue gloves to interface with the server that sustains our manufactured reality. And I use a blue-cover journal to write my thoughts—the ones giving me nightmares.

We’re in the Star Stripes bar with Mother today. The speakers crane over me, pulsing with every bass note. Maybe it is a beating heart. Maybe an AI is trapped inside, unable to break free or scream because the music is too loud.

Inhale. The air is thick with mango scent. Behind the bar nest tiny lotuses in jars full of water—star-shaped, powdery, with petals yellow, blue, and red. Propellers in the bottom of the jars scatter the powder and the liquid color shifts.

Mother turns to me. “You all right?”

On her right temple a thimble-sized rectangle protrudes, glowing aquamarine. Her time-key—similar to my own. As Time Technicians we need these keys to step out of the time continuum in case of errors, to observe and diagnose. When time is man-made—manufactured to keep things going when Nature itself has checked out—things can get more fragile.

I want to reply, but it’s so loud. I hate raising my voice.

Mother taps the cocktail menu tablet lying on the bar counter. “Want me to choose one for you?”

I nod.

She beckons the barwoman. “Hey Tiger, get us a Pandora’s Threesome.”

Tiger smiles. Her upper lip is painted orange, the lower black. Pretty. In a dance of chemistry, she pours rainbow liquids across jiggers, and pours the concoction into a glass. Then the climax: a large ice cube on the liquid surface and three thimble-sized mushrooms balanced atop with pincers.

“Sip first,” Tiger says. “Let the pickled mushroom open your glands, then a long gulp.”

I follow the instruction. Sip-taste-gulp. A blend of fruit and alcohol.

“You like?” Mother asks.

I nod.

“Cat got your tongue?”

I point at the speakers. “Too loud.”

She shrugs. “You spaced out before. Something troubling you?”

I lean closer. “Bad stupid thoughts again. I ruminate about being trapped in those speakers.”

Mother sips her cocktail. Salt from her glass’s rim clings to her brown lips. “Speakers are hardware. Unable to house basic AI software much less the trillion parameters sentience requires.”

“I wish you’d rewire my mind,” I say. “Insert new code. Remove these rumis.” Rumis is short for existential ruminations. I give short names to things I don’t like to make them less scary.

“We won’t force thoughts out of you, Alice. They’re part of who you are. Did you do your daily meditation?”

I nod.

“What did you write in your journal?”

“Had a rumi this morning,” I say. “That my mind will be scanned and uploaded in a digital system. And then the scan will inevitably be corrupted. There are just so many ways it can be corrupted. Trapped in an eternity of pain or paranoia. Unable to—”

“All right, all right,” Mother says, pressing her hand against mine. I didn’t realize I was shaking. “Now what is wrong with that thought?”

“It’s fortune telling. I make assumptions about the future and suffer in my imagination.”

“Exactly. Now, what would you say to someone if they had this fear? A positive thought can—”

A vibration on my temple. Mother grasps her own time-key.

Tiger’s movements turn sluggish, the cocktail liquid flowing between jiggers freezes—suspended droplets hanging in the air, glinting pink. Tiger becomes a statue with a lopsided orange-black smile.

I follow Mother outside, skirting the frozen people across the bar. My core thrums. The sky and stars are gone, leaving behind inky blackness of non-reality populated by five cyan discs, like tiny moons—other time bubbles floating in the post-universe void.

The city lights are off, except for the Tower which houses the Server. It emits colossal rows of halogen light that paint the antimatter cars and the pedestrians frozen mid-gait in outlandish pale illumination.

Mother’s shaking. I’ve never seen her like this. I, too, find myself shaking.

The Server never crashed before.RPT