About L. Siekiera

I don't give out much of my personal info online because I was born on the cusp of the current state of things: the internet wasn't new by any means, but it hadn't been so assimilated. I grew up browsing kids' sites (do those still exist?), and when I was in school we learned internet safety by making silly little PSAs. Massive social networks didn't exist yet, and the current model of selling data in demographics didn't either. *shrug*

That being said, a few words won't get me in trouble. I come from a strange family and a boring little place. I spent a lot of time in my early years alone, and naturally I developed a habit of talking to myself and an active imagination. So fiction serves me well. Fortunately I discovered how much I love it at a young age. I wanted out, I wanted a genre as far away from my life as possible and I got it. Through the journey of writing for well over a decade and working on several fantasy or fantasy-adjacent novels, I have spent a lot of time seeking out writing advice and reading books on craft. However, a lot of it is just inadequate, and doesn't gel with my values on making art.

I want fiction, and all storytelling in art, to become far more diversified, not just in what life experiences are portrayed but in what conventions are broken, what questions that art can pose. I want all artists, authors and storytellers to be far less concerned with being "good", or marketable. I am a punk and carry my DIY ethics over to creating art and fiction. What this means is that after realizing the failures and limitations of existing creative institutions (such as the traditional book publishing industry or many teachings on craft), we create new spaces for our art to thrive. What would not survive in the corporate landscape of publishing for being too niche, too unmarketable, and too weird can and should thrive in a DIY scene, created by and for fans without profit being the primary motive. Yeah, making art without the big bucks is hard, but that's what makes its creation more worthwhile, regardless of the technical skill in the final output. I love low-budget art that's rough around the edges, I love 'weird' art made for an audience of 5 impassioned strangers, I love outsider art, I love amateur art. In that way, there is no bad art .

So I have a little hope that I can help change that by ranting into dead space. And you shouldn't just write what you know , but what you'd like to read. I want to make my thoughts about writing known with the hopes of perhaps swaying a few people's minds. And everyone, including myself, can always find room to grow. I guess this turned into a mission statement more than anything ""about"" me. Cheers for reading this far about a stranger's life.

Okay, but what about *you*?

I could put a bunch of bright labels and blinky userboxes here. But that would be pretty lazy, and what does it even matter to you? I'm not gonna give you all my micro-labels. If u wanna get to the bottom of this you have to unravel the mystery of what’s wrong with me over time <3

here is some miscellanea:

• i collect soda tabs to make clothing garments out of
• i like to forage and am trying to learn more about botany + ecology. if the state of the US was slightly less fucked i'd be
• i love thrift shopping and will use the number of thrifted clothes i'm currently wearing as a flex
• i started learning to code for web design at age 14 to customize my Tumblr blog
• i am very interested in tattoos and body modification in general, and occasionally do my own handpoke tattoos
• i collect bones when i'm lucky enough to come across them, currently I have a partial raccoon, porcupine + mice bones from an owl pellet. plus a deer spine in my backyard

Do you have other socials?

Nah, not at the moment. I've kinda been meaning to but I'm wrapped up in drafting my novels so I don't have a lot of energy for it atm. Except! If you'd like to know what I'm reading, follow me on storygraph. But whatever I will be on in the future, I will be @lsiekiera.

Contact

My email is lsiekiera@proton.me, just in case you need to send me hate and/or fan mail. I don't check it that often, I get very avoidant about checking my inbox tbh. Mail is still very appreciated tho, just don't expect a fast response.

A Note on The Smallweb

The smallweb is a collective term for individuals who run their own sites, as opposed to being merely another user on a big tech platform. I've always been a tech hipster and I love learning about niche and underground web stuff. For the time being, this site is hosted on Neocities, though my site may outgrow what the hosting framework is capable of supporting. Other users can follow my profile or chat here. This means that this entire site has been hand-coded and administered to by me. It may be a bit simple compared to blogs made with Wordpress or Tumblr, to name examples, but I really enjoy this level of control. I really want to take my time producing this site and its articles, so it can have the most meaning to you and me. If you have a strong interest in anything and a passing interest in learning to code, I highly recommend Neocities, and the smallweb in general.

Disclaimer: I am a human being & my perspective is limited to my own life experiences and conscious and unconscious beliefs. Obviously, this is true of everyone, but I strive for transparency with this. Like every other human, I am incapable of giving completely impartial information that applies on an absolute level, and many other things besides easily digestible labels color my worldly opinions. Striving to see outside your own perspective means that you must acknowledge the sources of your own. Take this simply as information on where I am coming from, nothing more and nothing less. Feel free to disagree with me; discourse and diverse perspectives are good for democratic society. Moreover, learn to think critically.