Jazz hands. Thundercats. Space sports. I used to balance beer on my head. Now I write books.

I’m Kameron Hurley, Hugo Award winner, Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, and internet scribe who has written such titles as the bugpunk science fiction noir God’s War trilogy and the Barnes and Noble Trade Paperback Fantasy Bestseller (I’ll take what I can get) The Mirror Empire, a fantasy epic of sentient trees, blood magic, and parallel universes colliding. I write regular columns for Locus Magazine and put out a few short stories a year, but I am probably best known on the internet for writing the award-winning essay "We Have Always Fought."

I call my fans Hurley’s Heroes, because they’ve made it possible for me to write and publish fiction and get paid for it – no small feat. If you’re here to become a patron, spread the word, or want to sign up yourself, well, you’re a hero too. Thanks!



People often say to me, “Hey, Kameron, you write weird, cool stuff! I LOVES IT! Why don’t you write MOAR of it? A book a year and a couple short stories DOES NOT SATE MY CRAVING FOR WEIRD BAD ASS HORRIFYING FANTASY-SCIENCE FICTION THUNDERDOME BUGMAGIC ACTION WITH BONUS QUEEROSITY AND SENTIENT TREES!” And I have to give the same boring answer again and again, “Because I have to eat.”

At the request of fans, I opened up donations via my tip jar a few years back, but I wanted to find a more formal solution, something that clearly tied projects created with donations so you could all actually SEE what projects you were enabling me to create with your support. Stuff that wouldn’t have been there AT ALL without your support!

One of the reasons I love fiction so much is because I get to own every word, as opposed to being beholden to a bunch of stakeholders the way I am at my copywriting day job. I get to make the sort of weird creepy stuff I like. Well… mostly. Sometimes those things are too weird and creepy to sell, or they don’t pay enough for me to invest in them over some better paying freelancing work. People forget that just because I write something doesn't mean I have any chance of selling it. What this Patreon lets me do is justify the time I need to spend to write shorter fiction without worrying about the market for it – and connect with you all while I’m doing it.

One of the reasons I chose Patreon over Kickstarter is because I want to concentrate on making Things instead of constant fulfillment of Things, which ends up eating into the actual time I have to Create All the Things. That’s why I’ve kept reward levels that include anything other than digital fulfillment to a minimum, capped at just 152 folks. It’s also why those reward levels are at the higher end. Fulfillment seriously eats into writing time, and can be expensive, especially when sending internationally.



This is an old-school Patreon, like ye patrons of olde: you are literally making it possible for me to devote time to create more fiction for you. There’s nothing more precious than time, especially when you’re a freelancer who bills by the hour. I’d much rather be writing fiction for you than websites for clients, but without patronage, writing short fiction doesn’t make the financial sense that my day job writing does.

Backers receive digital copies of all of the work made possible by this Patreon, plus additional “per Thing” rewards at various backer and milestone levels. These short stories may end up being sold elsewhere – to magazines, to anthologies, or for sale at various online retailers – but every single person who backs these projects gets them at every backer level, with covers and acknowledgements, before anyone else.



You’re lucky to get one short story a year from me right now. With this Patreon, you could get 6-12 pieces a year, depending on my workload. If you’re budgeting things out, plan to get a Thing every 6-8 weeks, especially here at the beginning. At maximum, you’ll get one Thing per month (and that will probably be later on as I get into the groove of things and see how this works out).



I’ve got a chronic illness, so I know that time is precious and these are the years when I'm going to be doing my best work. The amount of time I get to devote to these projects is totally up to you. Every dollar counts! Thanks so much, heroes.