Genre Exercises
I write speculative fiction, cultural criticism, humor, and journalism, with a particular interest in retrofuturism, video games, fandom, and forgotten corners of pop culture history. My work has been published by Wired, Rolling Stone, Slate, McSweeney’s, Alta Journal, Flash Fiction Online, Underland Press, and Shacklebound Books. I also publish the newsletter Pop Cultural Precursors.
Longlisted in Uncharted Magazine's Cinematic Short Story Contest
My short story "Autonomous Mode" made the longlist in this call, which will be judged by the amazing Ananda Lima. (I assume my story is first on the list because my last name is "Baker" and it's alphabetical by author, and not because I've got the inside track or anything...)
McSweeney's: Dystopian sci-fi horror about rude social media Reply Guys
"I don’t enjoy playing the role of That Annoying Internet Guy who reflexively replies with hectoring know-it-all comments like 'Why are you surprised?' or 'How is this news?' But people force me..."
Short story in Kozy Krampus holiday horror anthology. Buy it now!
You can buy a paperback or digital version of this book that features my 4000-word piece “‘The I Night I Defeated the Demon of Winter’ from Chapter XLVIII of the autobiography of Sir Gottfried von Berlichingen.”
Story "Unfinished Conversations Package" in Flash Fiction Online's November 2025 special FamPunk issue. Read it here. Tangent Online says, "There is much to ponder about the relationship between parent and child in this deceptively simple tale."
Flash piece in the anthology Twisted Trails: Tales of the Weird Wild West. Buy it here and read my story: “Specters of the Crash: A Cross-Media Survey of Paranormal Narratives Surrounding the Crush Collision of 1896 (Journal of the Texas Folklore Society, Vol. 79 No. 1 – Summer, 2025)" I examined a tragic real-life event in Texas history through the lens of Mexican ghost ballads, dark fantasy pulp, EC horror comics, Swinging Sixties steampunk, spaghetti Westerns, sci-fi manga, & a psychedelic Jodorowsky fever dream.
At my day job, I got to write the story bible and do script continuity for this award-winning sci-fi horror podcast series. It was commissioned as a prerelease promotion and story extension for the disgustingly gory game The Callisto Protocol.
My earliest speculative fiction ran on WIRED magazine's monthly back page item Found: Artifacts from the Future. Read some of them here.