In case you missed it, I had a new story come out in Nature (hat trick!) this past October. “Scratch record” is the nearest-future story I’ve ever had published. Writing near-future scifi is a dangerous game. In the gap between writing a story and getting it published, with potentially months or years of submissions, rejections, and revisions in between, the story’s speculative hook might end up being yesterday’s headlines. On a related note, if you’re in the market for a story about a group of friends at a generative AI watch party that sequentially quarantine their apartment when a flash pandemic strikes–written in 2018–hit me up.

While the Black Mirror episode “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” influenced “Scratch record,” perhaps “Joan Is Awful,” released during this story’s writing-publication gap, is a closer thematic link, “church scene” and all.

Want another serving of this future-of-music stew? At Kiss’ final concert last month, they announced their plans to live forever as avatars.