In the Middle of Making

Over the past year, I’ve been building something that doesn’t fit neatly into a single category—and that’s very much the point.

Little Brainstorm has grown as a creative ecosystem: comics, illustrated books, classroom work, theatre, mechanical art, and education all feeding into each other. What looks like a dozen separate projects from the outside is, for me, one ongoing question:How do we tell honest stories that help people—especially kids—understand themselves a little better?

A lot of the recent work has focused on neurodivergence and social-emotional learning, not as buzzwords, but as lived experience. The stories and comics I’ve been developing lean into chaos, humor, and big ideas—because that’s often how thinking actually feels. They’re funny, sometimes absurd, but grounded in real emotional logic. Feelings feel true. Thoughts race. Meaning emerges sideways.

At the same time, my work in classrooms and workshops has continued to shape everything I make. Teaching theatre, working with students, and leading workshops at places like Comic-Con, WonderCon, and education conferences constantly reminds me what lands and what doesn’t. Kids are sharp. They know when something is condescending. They know when a story is honest. That feedback loop—between page, stage, and classroom—has been essential.

Lately, I’ve also been spending more time building things with my hands. Kinetic, mechanical sculptures. Moving pieces that are engineered, not sentimental—systems of motion, balance, and constraint. That maker mindset has quietly influenced my storytelling too. Stories are systems. Characters push against limits. Tension is mechanical as much as emotional.

Alongside all of that, I’ve been coaching wrestling, writing plays, and continuing to explore performance as a tool for empathy and understanding. Wrestling and theatre may look like opposites, but they share something important: discipline, presence, and learning how to stay grounded under pressure. Those lessons carry straight into storytelling.

None of this work exists in isolation. The books inform the teaching. The teaching informs the plays. The sculptures inform the stories. The stories circle back and sharpen everything else.

I don’t think of Little Brainstorm as a brand so much as a practice—one built around curiosity, weirdness, and the belief that complexity doesn’t have to be intimidating. It can be playful. It can move. It can make you laugh before it makes you think.

There’s more coming. More stories. More experiments. More things that move—on the page, on stage, and in real space.

For now, I’m taking long walks with my dog through the Bay Area fog, drinking too much tea, and continuing to build the kind of work I wish I’d had when I was younger.

Thanks for being here.