From 1992 until 2001, I built the world, created the characters and developed the themes of the HBO series, Canivàle. From 2016 until now, I built the world, created the characters and developed the themes of Gingerland. The latter was the most challenging. Of all the patches of soil to till, the Christmas tale is the most thoroughly depleted. Great authors have worked it for more than a century, from Dickens to Dr. Suess. To glean something fresh and original in the milieu was daunting, but eventually The Well gifted me with a notion worth nurturing into a narrative. Gingerland is first and foremost a Christmas story, entertaining, inspiring, joyful and whimsical. But like all good traditional Christmas stories, the themes run deceptively deep. Gingerland speaks not only to the sacred core of The Holiday, but to the existential challenge of analogue, flesh and blood creatures struggling to live in an increasingly digital world, where art is “content” and exploitation is enshrined as “monetization.” Secondly, I consciously composed the story to be read aloud, choosing each word with care, each sentence and paragraph crafted with a subtle cadence and rhythm that would please the ear—including passages of rhyming verse. Beautifully hand-illustrated by the brilliant Zelda Devon, Gingerland is a product of human minds and hands, not ones and zeros. The hardbound book will be available for pre-order on Amazon soon with an October 20th release. My hope is that Gingerland joins the rich canon of stories that folks cherish every holiday season, read and reread aloud among families in the days leading up to the Yuletide. The world has taken a dark turn of late. I think we could all use a new point of light this Holiday Season. So if you’ve read this far and you agree, please be kind enough to share this post with your followers.🙏🏼