What is The Prince of the Panhandle?
The Prince of the Panhandle is a picaresque novel being published in serial throughout 2025, with new chapters releasing every Friday morning. It charts a tumultuous year in the lives of several San Franciscans leading up to the coronation of Cicero Augustine, the eponymous prince.
Why are you writing this?
For as long as I can remember, “author” has been my answer to the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I recently unearthed a copy of Icehot, the first novel in a planned fantasy trilogy that I wrote back in middle school and published to Wattpad, on an old USB drive at my parents. But it’s been a while since I’ve written anything more substantial than half-baked short stories or little poems on melancholic days.
The Prince of the Panhandle is both an earnest attempt to produce a novel-length work of writing I am proud of, and a light-hearted outlet to reignite my childhood verve for writing.
The specific ideas that became this novel began germinating while reading what is now my favorite book of all time: the unparalleled Don Quixote. Thanks, Cervantes!
Why a serial?
The primary motivation for publishing in serial is to provide structure for myself (and any dear readers!). Writing a novel is no small task, and spreading out the work with a well-defined cadence will keep me honest as I turn writing fiction from a past-time into a daily practice.
But I’ve also been very interested in serialization as a method recently. It provides authors unique ways to play with narrative structure and pacing that aren’t readily available to novels published all at once. And spending months instead of days or weeks with a cast of characters changes the reading experience, too!
And of course, many literary masterpieces of the 19th and 20th centuries began as serial publications: The Count of Monte Cristo, Middlemarch, Ulysses, War and Peace, to name just a few. This year I’m planning to read some of these on their original schedule to learn more about how these masters made it work. Part of me hopes that serialization comes back into vogue as a method for publishing literature.
Sounds cool! How do I stay up to date?
Press this button!
By subscribing, you’ll get an email each week when a new chapter is released. (And I will never send you any extraneous emails!) For the best reading experience, I recommend downloading the Substack app.
You’ll also be able to leave comments on the novel. The ability for author and reader to interact while the story is unfolding is totally unique to serial storytelling; make use of it!
Lastly, this is a very homespun operation, and each and every subscriber will really mean the world to me. If you live in SF, I’d be more than happy to meet up!
