A Hell of a Life

An upcoming Young Adult horror novel for fans of Anne Rice

According to Heaven, Andras Martinez should have never existed. Born of the unholy union between a witch and a demon, the halfling was either doomed to die by Heaven’s hands or destined to transcend into a demon himself. Instead of teaching Andras how to protect himself until he could transcend, his mother Gabriela raised him as a normal New England kid. That didn’t stop Andras from practicing magic behind her back.He promised himself he would quit using dark magic to win poker matches once he started his freshman year of college. Then his mother died. Now that Andras was eighteen, he had to pay her debts if he wanted to keep his childhood home. His absent father wouldn’t rise from Hell to help him anytime soon.On the night of Gabriela’s funeral service, a mysterious figure came to collect the grimoire they lent to her almost twenty years ago. Only a fool would make a deal with a demon, but how could Andras refuse the silver-tongued stranger when they offered to pay off his million-dollar mortgage (and keep him safe from Heaven’s executioners)? All it would cost Andras was indefinite servitude to the great king Asmodeus, Lucifer’s left hand and the notorious master of gambling.
***
A Hell of a Life is an LGBT+ supernatural horror Young Adult (YA) novel about Andras Martinez, an asexual eighteen-year-old transgender boy with a witch mother, a deadbeat divine father, and now a lonely, conniving demon determined to drag him to Hell for eternity. Will Asmodeus successfully convince him to transcend to demonhood, or would Andras rather live out a “normal” life with his best (and totally 100% platonic) friend Coda on Earth once Asmodeus finds what they’re looking for? Andras must decide what he wants before Heaven’s executioners can erase his existence.Andras’s snarky voice and spiteful character drive this horrific, absurd story that will appeal to fans of Anne Rice, Aiden Tomas, Andrew Joseph White, and Neil Gaiman. Despite Heaven and Hell’s sinister efforts, Andras’s journey is not another horror story where queer people of color are destined to fail.I’m a tranmasc Latine service journalist, writer, and artist who works in Cambridge. In 2019, I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in media studies and a minor in creative writing. I’m writing the book I wish I had when I was a teenager: a campy horror story about a transmasc Latine person who learns to love every part of himself. A Hell of a Life is my first novel.You can read a sample at my Authory page.

Tahlequah: A Poem

If you'd like to see this poem in person, please visit the Images, Then Words exhibit at the Menino Arts Center in Hyde Park, MA before February 14. It accompanies the beautiful hand-stitched piece "Whale" by Mary Herman.

This poem is dedicated to Tahlequah, the orca who carried her calf over a thousand miles in a show of grief. Climate change has made it harder than ever for orcas to live to adulthood. Please consider donating to a conservation fund like the Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Wildlife Fund, or the Nature Conservancy.

Tahlequah - 39 - Adrien Ramirez

The crisp air of Puget Sound,
soft blue bathes shore and mountain alike
Rainforests, banana slugs crawling
by ancient cedars and evergreen firs
Life blossoms in the coldest cracks of landSalmon race up the river to their birthplace
Unhatched eggs protected by rotting flesh
The octopus hunts in the sea
wise and graceful and powerful
but only a couple years allowed to liveAmong our kind, mother and father grow
As old as humans and larger than ships
Yet we do not seem to be blessed with life
Our numbers hardly grow and our babes die young
The ocean stifles our strengthMy first son was gone as soon as he came,
And you, my sweet daughter
light of my life in my quarter century of time
By the fin and on my head I carried you alive
one final voyage a thousand miles
to rest where I was bornIn our pod, tightly stitched, each are loved for a lifetime
Whether that be 80 years or 80 secondsWhen I become dust on the sand
and my bones feed the fish,
I hope we can swim together
in the sunless sea once more