Can you sing the theme song to your favorite video game?

You might be a nerd.

Maybe you’re great at math, maybe you’re an artist, or maybe you just have this feeling of being somehow apart from the world. Don’t feel alone—join us!  Read an short story, wordsmith a comment, or even pitch an article of your own.

Welcome to Nerd Empire.

Hi, I’m J.R. Darewood

I got called a nerd quite a lot growing up, in a world that felt like a prison. Writing was an escape that took me ever farther than running away ever could have. I made this site for my fellow nerds and I to share our passions– take a deeper look inside for interviews with concept artists and cosplayers, articles on the virtues of virtual reality, or fresh short fiction! But most importantly, know that you’re in good company.

In addition to Nerd Empire, here’s some other places you can find fun stories I’ve written about a serial killers, psychotic sorceresses, and people who are into donkeys.

When a metrosexual man with a desperate need to shit encounters a serial killer along the 10 freeway, all bets are off! The Killer 10 is here on this site, but it also appeared in Gifts from the Dark: A Miscellany of Dread. All proceeds from the book are donated to an organization helping homeless people with mental illness.

If a bitter distrust of romance is more your thing, try Hearts and Other Dead Things. It’s an anthology guaranteed to make you glad you’re single, or wish you were. There you can find my short stories “The Number” about a man who calls a number scrawled on a toilet stall and gets more than he bargained for, “Sex in Santo Domingo” about… errr… donkeys… some twisted poetry, and a black comedy I co-wrote with romance author Catherine Lenderi “Romantics Anonymous”. The proceeds for this book go to an organization that supports women who have been trapped in indentured servitude in Singapore.

In the short story “The Forbidden”, Nyssa is driven to brave every taboo she’s ever known, while the voices of dead beg her to stop. The Forbidden won a creative writing competition on Fantasy Faction in which writers had to blend technology and magic.

My largest project is a novel-in-progress, an epic fantasy-horror-comedy that I’d put in the “grim-lite” genre. I’m in the editing stages, but I hope to be submitting to publishers soon. I’ll have excerpts and promotional materials out soon. If you’re interested in beta-reading, please reach out!

The post About Nerd Empire appeared first on .