Adam Bender's Blog

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I know, I know … I already messed up my New Year’s resolution of writing a blog post every month. But it’s not that I forgot. No, really, I have an excuse:

Pneumonia. The excuse is pneumonia. And I do not recommend it.

Doing much better now, thanks.

Anyway! While that whole thing did waylay me for about a month, I do have a few updates to share. First, happy to say my novels are now available in eBook format through Bookshop.org, which just recently started selling digital editions. I’ve had my paperbacks there for years now, and I absolutely recommend buying from Bookshop.org if you want your hard-earned cash to go to companies that support independent bookstores.

Meanwhile, things have been super busy on the Privacy Daily front, as the news about data privacy continues to ramp up. The first quarter of the year is also when the state legislatures are most active, so that’s been taking up a lot of my attention so far in 2026. But hey, they say it’s good to be busy, right?

Don’t worry–I haven’t completely neglected my creative writing! As I hinted at in my last post, I’ve lately been working in Reedsy’s writing app on something new.

You know, after breaking my resolution and skipping the blog in April, I feel like should give you something, even though I’ve become terribly superstitious about revealing my writing plans too early in the process. So, here goes, with the disclaimer that I may totally abandon this! You have been warned!

For some reason — the state of the world or whatever — has gotten me thinking again about the dystopian nation I created in my first two books, the so-called We, The Watched duology.

A central theme of those two books was forgetting, with a hero whose amnesia gives him a blank-slate perspective on how dark things have become even as the rest of society seems to ignore it. Lately, I have been thinking about how even societies that overcome such darkness may over time forget how bad things used to be–and begin to slip backwards.

So, I don’t know … I mean, who really says duology? Maybe it should be a trilogy?

Sometimes it takes more than a good idea to get started writing. I’ve long found that having the right tool makes a difference not only for getting started on a novel but for sticking with it through the last punctuation mark.

The how of writing has changed for me over the years. When I was kid, I wrote with an actual pen or pencil. Eventually, perhaps recognizing the inadequacy of my handwriting, I started typing up drafts on a typewriter or–when we finally got a computer–a Windows 95 PC.

I began writing my first real novel when I was in college. As I had done for homework assignments, I wrote We, The Watched in Microsoft Word. This software worked fine, but as I got further along in the story and the plot grew more complex, Word’s weaknesses for novel writing became apparent. Once you get over 100 pages, it gets difficult to check back what kind of clothes a character was wearing in Chapter 2, and whether they were torn during that fight in Chapter 10.

So partway through writing my second novel, Divided We Fall, I realized I needed to make a change. This novel was more complex than WTW because it followed the perspectives of two characters. That meant I had to keep track of two timelines in one book (plus flashbacks!) and make sure everything lined up properly. This simply was too difficult for me to manage in a Word document.

Luckily, I found a great new writing app called Scrivener, which in 2015 I wrote was a piece of writing software I couldn’t live without. With scenes and chapters that could be dragged and dropped around like notecards on a board, plus plenty of tags and other meta information to input, Scrivener helped me ensure continuity and general cogency throughout DWF. This became even more critical in my next book, The Wanderer and the New West, which has an even more complex plot that jumps among the perspectives of several characters.

Here’s how The Wanderer and the New West looks in Scrivener!

While I still think Scrivener is a great tool, I recently decided to try yet another writing app for a very basic reason: I was starting to feel limited by being able to access my writing only on a PC.

Currently, I use a self-built Windows 11 gaming desktop at home and a sleek and streamlined Chromebook Plus on the go. Unfortunately, Scrivener is not web-based and while there’s a way to use it on Linux, which technically works on a Chromebook, this just felt a bit too intimidating to me to try to set up. While an iPad version is now available for mobile writing, I have never been an Apple guy and didn’t want to buy a whole new device just for this one thing.

Also, even when I was using a Windows laptop rather than a Chromebook, syncing between the apps via OneDrive or Dropbox could be a clunky and precarious thing. First of all, if I planned to work offline, I had to make sure the laptop was synced before I left the house. Second, if I forgot to this, I could risk a situation where there were conflicting versions on each device. While fortunately this never happened to me, a corrupted file is a fear a writer could do without!

Recently, I realized that what I really wanted was a way to quickly access the novel I was writing through a web-based app that I could flexibly access on any device, be it a desktop, laptop, phone or tablet. That’s when I remembered Reedsy!

It’s funny, because for many years, I had been a user of Reedsy’s core service for matching authors with editors, cover designers and other freelancers. It’s why my last two novels in particular look so good!

Long-time blog readers may also recall I interviewed Reedsy’s founders back in 2015. However, at the time, when Reedsy had only recently introduced its web-based writing software, I was already in the middle of a novel on Scrivener and didn’t think I could easily transition all the work I’d already done to a more streamlined platform.

Well, last year, after some fits and starts trying to get going on a new project, I realized that one of my biggest barriers was simply finding the time and space to work. Under my current writing system, I had to be in front of my desktop PC, which–by the way–I also use for my work-at-home job all day long. Suddenly, it occurred to me: I should try that web-based Reedsy writing app!

A look at Reedsy Studio. No, this isn’t my next novel; I got the image from Reedsy’s website!

While it’s still early days, so far I’m enjoying Reedsy Studio. With an emphasis on distraction-free writing, it’s definitely more streamlined than my previous writing software. However, I’m actually finding this simplicity to be refreshing after years of toying with options and settings in Scrivener.

Reedsy’s app has also evolved over time, and now has more tools for outlining a plot and fleshing out people and locations in the story. I especially like–even more than I thought I would–the built-in templates that ask key questions about my characters. Not only is it forcing me to add much more dimension to even minor characters than I might have otherwise, but it’s giving me things to work on even at times when I don’t feel like writing the actual story.

Most importantly, I can now jump into my novel whenever inspiration strikes, no matter where I happen to be or what device I happen to have with me. At this time in my life, when it comes to writing, this may be the most valuable feature of all.

The post Refreshing My Writing Tools: From Word to Scrivener to Reedsy appeared first on Adam Bender.

Happy New Year! So, my first resolution for 2026 is to get back to updating this blog! (Hey look, I did it.)

It’s been a while, reader. I really do apologize for the dearth of posts over the last year. I can tell you I was not sitting on my hands. In fact, from a professional standpoint, it was not a bad year at all!

As you may know, I am an author by night and weekend. By day, I am a journalist covering the intersection of tech and legal policy. Well, at the end of 2024, I was given the privilege of becoming the deputy managing editor of a new publication covering data privacy law, enforcement and compliance. We call it Privacy Daily, and we’ve had a whirlwind–and very rewarding–first year!

So here’s what happened: I focused all my 2025 energy getting the publication off the ground and doing everything I could to make it a success. It’s gone well! However, you might say all this effort came at the cost of my creative writing, which was already taking a hit due to the challenges (and rewards) of raising a small child. No regrets on any of this! It’s just the reality of being a 40-year-old.

However, this brings me to second resolution: Get back into creative writing in 2026!

While I can’t say things have slowed down on the journalistic front, I do feel a lot more calm and confident about Privacy Daily going into year two. I think we’ve really found our groove in terms of workflow, and there’s no shortage of privacy news to write about.

So, yeah! More creative writing in 2026!To tell you the truth, it’s not like I did nothing of this kind in 2025. Since publishing my last book Utopia PR, I have been brainstorming new ideas and writing possible beginnings to new novels. It’s probably too early to announce anything, but I can tell you that I started a project recently that feels relevant and, most importantly, exciting for me to write about.

So stay tuned and hopefully I will have more to say about that soon. I’d love to get back into at least monthly updates to this blog, so if you haven’t already, please subscribe using the form below or to the left.

The post Adam’s New Year Resolutions appeared first on Adam Bender.

Talk about an October surprise: Indie Author Project (IAP) selected my dystopian satire novel Utopia PR as a runner-up in the sci-fi/fantasy category of its annual contest!

IAP connects indie authors with public libraries and their patrons across the U.S. I’ve personally used their service, formerly known as SELF-e, to submit eBooks and audiobooks of my novels to join a growing collection of high-quality, self-published books at libraries. IAP ensures the quality of the books by vetting submissions through industry editors and librarian editorial boards.

IAP announced the awards via WebEx on Friday, Nov. 1. I quickly snapped a screenshot of this slide revealing Utopia PR as a runner-up.

This was my first year entering IAP’s annual contest. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I submitted Utopia PR back in April. It was long enough ago that I had almost forgot I even entered, so it was wonderful to hear the news on Nov. 1 that my book made it to the top 3 of all sci-fi/fantasy novels. (It just occurred to me that this technically means it’s a November surprise, but I don’t care! I’m not changing the lede!)

In addition, while I have won awards for my novels in the past (including a humor award for Utopia PR), this was the first one that came with a a cash prize! Not in this for the money, obviously… Did I mention I’m an indie author? Still, it sure is nice. I’m also hoping that I will get a promotional boost from this honor that will lead more readers to find my book.

In case you’re one of those fine people who haven’t picked up a copy, Utopia PR is a sci-fi satire about seeking work-life balance while doing public relations for a dystopian president. It’s available now in eBook, print and audiobook formats from all your favorite retailers and streaming services. Here’s the synopsis:

PR extraordinaire Blake Hamner (the n is silent) put off his honeymoon for his big break: joining a major political campaign for president. Now, the “Hammer” struggles to make time for his marriage as Crisis Communications Manager for Our Leader, who since taking power has become increasingly mad and totalitarian.

The Hammer starts to reconsider his career choices when one of Our Leader’s savage steel hounds attacks the Comms team at a press conference. He’d love to talk about his erratic job with his wife, Triple-N news anchor Maria Worthington, but they have a rule: the broadcast journalist doesn’t ask Blake for inside information about his work, and the spin doctor doesn’t use their relationship as leverage on what Maria reports. They say you shouldn’t keep things from each other in a marriage, but it’s OK—the only secrets between Blake and Maria are professional.

When a revolutionary levels grave allegations against Our Leader—and accuses Blake of distributing disinformation and propaganda to cover it up—the PR rep who thought he could talk his way out of any crisis finds himself utterly trapped in a dystopian job.

I guess it’s kind of funny to win an award days before the 2024 election for a book about how “weird” our presidential politics have gotten. Let’s hope that’s a good omen.

The post Utopia PR is a Sci-Fi Finalist in Indie Author Project 2024 Contest appeared first on Adam Bender.

Sometimes it feels like we’re living in a dystopian world–and social media doesn’t help. Like any communications channel, it can be used to spread good messages or bad. In my day job as a journalist, I’ve been writing quite a bit about attempts by government policymakers to try to make social media a safer space. However, there doesn’t seem to be much consensus on how to get this done.

In the meantime, we can try to control how social media affects our own mental health simply by choosing what platforms we use ourselves.

You’ll see from the social icons under my name at the top-left of this website that I’m on a bunch of them. As an indie author, I’ve often felt that I have to be in many places in order to (hopefully) find potential readers and communicate with current fans. But let me tell you, it’s exhausting to be everywhere at once, and I can’t say for sure I have accomplished my goals.

I told you a while back how I decided to get off Twitter (I did it before the name change!) and move to Mastodon. Well, Mastodon is a fine Twitter clone, and people do seem nicer there, but honestly I don’t feel passionate about tooting (ew gross). Lately, I’ve been spending more time on Bluesky (follow me: @adambenderwrites.com), another Twitter clone. It’s got some cool features, too, like using your web address as your username.

However, one thing I’ve never liked about Twitter–and it’s the same on Bluesky and Mastodon–is that certain users tweet/toot/post extremely frequently. Much more so than others. As a result, my feed ends up being dominated by one or two users. It’s not that I don’t want to hear from these people–I did follow them, after all. It’s just that I don’t want to hear from them this much and I don’t want them to always be drowning out the other, less chatty folks I’ve followed. In addition, the people that talk the most–at least in my feed– seem to be the ones who most make our world feel like a complete dystopia! So much bad news and cynical humor! I tend to leave the site in a bad mood as a result.

I think that’s why a Wired article caught my attention yesterday. The headline was “Maven Is a New Social Network That Eliminates Followers—and Hopefully Stress.”

Yes, please!

The platform eschews likes and follows in favor of letting pure chance play more of a role in what appears in users’ feeds … On Maven, you don’t have followers, so you don’t have to worry about what your followers want to hear from you, or how to gain more of them.

Wired.com

This idea of getting rid of likes and follows struck a chord with me. What if I didn’t have to choose people to follow? What if I didn’t have to worry so much about likes and retweets? That sounds like some sort of utopia!

I signed up yesterday. Uh, I’m not actually sure how to link to my own profile or if that’s even possible. But that’s OK! Maybe that’s even the whole point! I hope we connect serendipitously!

So far, I’ve had a couple friendly chats with folks that weren’t stressful at all. Will I stay on Maven? Who knows! It’s early days and I may lose interest like I have on other networks. That said, it’s exciting to see a new approach to this idea of social media — one that seems to consider users’ mental health as a core value. That’s why I’m rooting for Maven — or other platforms with a similar mantra — to disrupt what has become such a negative space.

The post Social media that doesn’t make you feel bad? appeared first on Adam Bender.

Libraries are an important place for book discovery. As an indie author, it’s even more important that I find ways to reach a critical audience of curators: the librarians!

This year I was excited to have an entire shelf to myself featuring my four dystopian novels at the American Library Association’s 2023 conference in Chicago. The event ran from June 22-27. My books appeared in a booth managed by the Independent Book Publishers Association. I’m a proud IBPA member.

Utopia PR bookmark

I made some really fun Utopia PR bookmarks specifically for the event! I’ve got extras and will try to find a way to make these available in the future. Let me know if you’re interested by tagging me on social media.

I had previously displayed and signed copies of The Wanderer and the New West at a pre-pandemic ALA conference in Washington, DC. I was unable to attend this year’s show in person, but I hope to get out to this excellent conference again in the future.

I love finding out that my books are available in libraries, whatever the format. All four eBook editions of my novels, plus the audiobook editions of my last two books, were accepted into the Indie Author Project and available to participating libraries. Books in physical and digital formats can also be acquired separately through distributors including Ingram and Smashwords. Please contact me if you need help finding my books.

Here are few more photos from ALA 2023. Here’s a fun idea: Try to find my novels in each picture like it’s a Where’s Waldo book!

Thanks to IBPA for taking all of the photos in this post!

The post My Dystopian Bookshelf at ALA 2023 appeared first on Adam Bender.

I have a new short story out! It’s called “Six Straight Roads,” and here’s the short description:

Matt tries to be the hero at his friend’s annual Capture the Flag birthday tournament in this coming-of-age short story set in the Philly suburbs. Sweating and covered with sap, Matt learns who his true friends are beneath the shade of a 20-foot-tall pine tree. In the tradition of fellow sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, Adam Bender reflects on his childhood experiences and the innocence of youth.

You can read it for free through Smashwords!

It’s fair to say that “Six Straight Roads” has been a long time coming. I began writing the short story back in 2016. I was trying to come up with ideas, and my wife suggested I should write a short story based on a random title.

“Okay, so what’s the title?” I asked nervously.

She thought for a moment and said, “Six Straight Roads.”

I was stupefied more than inspired. What story could I possibly write with such a mundane yet cryptic title?

But then, as I kept running the title through my mind, I started thinking about the games of Capture the Flag my friends and I used to play in our suburban neighborhood in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The various pleasantly named streets formed a kind of grid that we used to set the boundaries and midpoint of the game’s map. It occurred to me that “six straight roads” could form just such a grid.

So, yeah, even though I’m allegedly a sci-fi author (and a dystopian one at that), I began writing a short story inspired by my childhood adventures in suburbia. But hey, if Ray Bradbury could do it, then so could I!

I quickly wrote the first draft of “Six Straight Roads.” However, I guess it never quite felt finished, because I didn’t release it in 2016. Then I guess I forgot about it for a few years, had a child in 2019 (Happy Father’s Day!), and got caught up in writing Utopia PR. It wasn’t until summer of (gasp) 2021 that I gave it another look.

I had just joined a Philly writers’ meetup group and was looking for something to submit for the group to read. I realized this would be a great opportunity to polish up my rough draft of “Six Straight Roads.” I ended up getting a really encouraging critique from a bunch of great writers. They liked the story and had a bunch of great ideas to make it even better. I took many notes, excited to finally finish the damn thing.

And then I put it off for another year. Okay, but in December 2022, I stopped clicking snooze on my to-do list, sat down, and got to work implementing my fellow writers’ suggestions. I finally whipped the thing into shape!

But then of course I dilly dallied on releasing it … until today! I really hope you enjoy it. It’s been on my mind for forever. Please leave a review on Smashwords or let me know what you think in the comments below.

By the way, there’s something pretty cool about the cover. Can you guess what it is? (The answer is below!)

Cover of “Six Straight Roads” by Adam Bender

Yes, I created the drawing with AI! Like probably all of you, I’ve been pretty flummoxed and frightened by the whole AI craze, but I thought one good use might be to help design a quick cover for a free short story. I’ll still hire real people to design my novels but I can’t afford to do that for every little piece I write.

I used DALL-E through the Microsoft Bing AI chatbot. At first I was thinking more literally about the title and tried to get an image of suburban streets from above, but it was kind of boring.

An AI generated suburban neighborhood. Credit: DALL-E/Bing

My other idea was to focus on the story’s main characters hiding out beneath a pine tree. At first I got some really f-ed up looking children, but specifying a cartoon style helped fix that. I still got a weird one with blank eyes….

Not bad but what’s with that kid’s eyes? Credit: DALL-E/Bing

But then I got the one I ended up using. I was intrigued by how the one kid looked kind of melancholy. It looks like there’s a story there!

Ah, that’s better. Credit: DALL-E/Bing

Oh yeah, those kids really do have a story! It’s called “Six Straight Roads.” Hope you like it!

The post Six Straight Roads, a new short story by Adam Bender appeared first on Adam Bender.

Is it bad that, upon seeing a smoke-filled sky, these were some of my first thoughts?

At least it’s not a pandemic.The air quality danger is down to “very unhealthy,” so I can probably go for a walk!I’m still going to a rock concert tonight (Temples — very good!).Hey, now I can use some of my leftover N95 masks! Or maybe I can really get stylish and break out my old cloth masks!

Are we getting used to the kind of thing we used to read about in dystopian novels and post-apocalyptic films like The Road Warrior?

People often ask me if this kind of thing inspires me to write. Honestly, what it inspires me to do is to retreat into a popcorn video game like Marvel’s Midnight Suns or an optimistic TV show like Ted Lasso. Ah… fictional England, all they care about there is the next soccer football match!

I have been working, slowly, on a new novel. I am not addressing the COVID-19 pandemic or our imminent environmental doom. Those are great topics for other authors, but not much of an escape for me.

Yes, I’m still writing in the dystopian genre, and it’s not another comedy (though writing a political satire was a great escape from a depressing series of years!). I’m having a good time figuring out what makes my characters tick, as well as spending more time on the world building as well. In other words, I’ve been taking a lot of notes. However, I’m feeling optimistic that the end product from all this will be worth the effort.

Assuming the world doesn’t end first.

Stay safe, everyone!

The post I Still Walk Beneath Dystopian Skies appeared first on Adam Bender.

Recently, a great dystopian game took me by surprise.

But before I get to that, I want to give you a geeky origin story about the PC upgrade that enabled me to play it and some other awesome games! See, I’ve always enjoyed games but had started to get a little behind on the hardware. Sure, I have a Nintendo Switch and that’s always fun, but there were an increasing number of PC games I wanted to give a try.

A couple of months ago, I finally went ahead and upgraded my graphics card to an AMD Radeon 6700 XT. Not the best you can get, but definitely a good mid-range card to help me get my gaming fix, and more than enough to play some of the indie titles I was eager to try. To complement the card, I also upgraded my monitor to a 32″ screen with 1440p resolution and a silky smooth 165Hz refresh rate.

Upgrade complete, one of the first games I enjoyed on the new system was…

StrayWhy wouldn’t I want to play a cat in a dystopian future?
Credit: Annapurna Interactive

I write dystopian fiction, so obviously I had to try this dystopian game. Stray was a short but sweet game with engaging storytelling throughout. The game begins with a cat slipping into an underground city where humans went to hide when the planet became inhospitable. However, the only life left down there is artificial. Well, that and radioactive rat things. As the cat, you help a little robot remember its past and try to help a group of sentient robots escape to the surface.

It’s cute! And scary! What really makes it unique is you explore the Blade Runner-esque world from the perspective of the cat. Messing around in the feline way (scratching doors, leaping from the floor, to a table, to a shelf, to a…) keeps the gameplay feeling fresh. And the neon-lit world looks absolutely beautiful.

Definitely worth a play if you’re looking for a sci-fi game that’s not about a beefy soldier shooting up aliens.

Oh, and by the way, I probably didn’t need a big PC upgrade to play Stray, but it sure does look good with the graphics settings turned up to 11. I definitely did need the upgrade, however, to play…

Marvel’s Midnight SunsPlanning your next move is half the fun. The other half is the KAPOW that follows.
Credit: 2K

This one isn’t a dystopian game, but I did have a dystopian experience when I bought it not long after launch. After a couple really fun introductory battles, Midnight Suns started crashing … and crashing … every 15 minutes. I learned on Steam that some other players were having the same problem. But when I checked with 2K support, they basically gaslit me, forcing me to do all kinds of tests of my system rather than entertaining the idea that it might be their software that was the problem.

Then one day, 2K released a patch and the crashing stopped! Guess it wasn’t my system’s fault. Hopefully, my countless crash reports helped some other players out as well.

But I digress. While I could have let all that irritation stop me from playing Midnight Sun at all, the truth was those 15-minute play sessions were blissful while they lasted.

Midnight Suns is by the creators of XCOM and similarly has turn-based tactical fights. As a somewhat older gamer with a young child in the house, that kind of thing is really more my speed these days than a faster-paced action game. Anyway, Midnight Suns is like chess with superheroes and explosions! What’s not to like?

While this isn’t a dystopian game like Stray, it does focus on the darker, magical side of the Marvel Universe. While you still get to have heavy hitters like Iron Man and Spider-Man on your team, it’s cool to see a game feature this less frequently adapted side of the comics.

My only complaint (now that it’s stopped crashing) is that there is a whole lot of time between battles spent talking with heroes and wandering aimlessly around a mansion. It’s not unenjoyable, but the battles are so much more fun, and sometimes I just want to play a few of these in the row. I often only have an hour to play, and I feel like I end up spending 45 minutes of each of these periods outside of battle. The game could just use a little balance.

Speaking of balance, I feel like I’ve spent more time complaining about this game than praising it. Honestly, though, I do recommend it! If you’re a Marvel fan or like turn-based fighting with big production values, give this game a try.

More to Come!

When I started writing this blog post, I planned to feature a couple more games, but this is starting to feel a bit long! How about instead, I do a part two in not too long? In the meantime, let me know in the comments your thoughts on the above games or any recommendations you have about what I should play next on my upgraded PC!

Did you know?

I created two games based on my first novel, We, The Watched.

Find the Heretics in Watched Sweeper!A text adventure based on Chapter One!

The post I Was a Cat in this Great Dystopian Game appeared first on Adam Bender.

Dystopian authors like dystopian books! The fine folks at Shepherd, an up-and-coming competitor to Goodreads, recently asked me to write a list of five favorites from the same genre as my debut novel, We, The Watched.

So, without further ado, click the link to peruse: The best dystopian novels that foresee a frightening future!

KRAKOOM!

Photo by Johannes Plenio

For some reason, a lightning strike seemed appropriate after that title.

And no, I didn’t just list all my novels. It’s a mix of classics and some newer books. When you finish, also check out Shepherd’s dystopia bookshelf for more great reads recommended by other authors.

Please sound off in the comments if you’ve read any of my picks, or if you’d like to make some recommendations of your own. I’m always looking for my next read… After all, dystopian authors like dystopian books!

The post Bender’s Favorite Dystopian Books Foresee a Frightening Future appeared first on ADAM BENDER.