It began with a handmade Grogu doll and ended with a fantasy tavern run by angels. But along the way, a group of fandom-loving, fantasy-writing, Substack-experimenting creatives found themselves revived by short stories, inspired by each other, and on fire with the sense that fiction still matters.
Dominic de Souza joins Father Roderick, a Star Wars fan who is also a Catholic priest. He’s the kind of person who goes from celebrating Mass to interviewing Mon Mothma on stage, who hosts Star Wars conventions and casually drops in stories about Julian Glover, the actor who drank from the wrong grail in Indiana Jones and played General Veers in Empire Strikes Back, and the propmaster who built real-life lightsabers and a life-sized Chopper droid.
But more than that, he’s a writer rediscovering joy in the daily ritual of storytelling.
His writing journey took off thanks to a conversation about Legend Fiction and Substack. He started small—just a story a day. And the stories poured out. One tale was about a boy given a chicken feather by his mother to write beautiful stories in a monastery. He trades up for a goose feather, then chases a magical bird, then accepts a gift from an angel—only to lose it to a dark creature in exchange for a cursed quill that grants eternal writing but no rest. That’s the kind of twist that only comes from writing what you feel, not what you’re supposed to write.
There were stories about a magical tavern that appears to weary pilgrims, where angels serve cocoa and pastries while quietly recording the stories of those who pass through.
We chat on how short stories are more than just shorter novels.
They’re focused. They strip down to one or two characters, one strong want, and a payoff. They help us practice evoking emotion with fewer words. They teach us how to write evocative prose and how to show rather than tell. And in that practice, we find our voice.
Dominic shared how he rediscovered his main character through writing a short story for an anthology he thought he’d never complete. Another story about a Cocoa Mafia and a cafe in a harbor became a playground for story structure, tension, and motivation.
In writing smaller, we thought bigger.
Our conversations led to the idea of a magazine. A real print magazine born from our community, our stories, and our belief that fiction matters. Not preachy fiction. Not sanitized fiction. Just good, mythic, moral, magical stories that belong on any bookstore shelf. Stories that readers crave but don’t always know how to find.
We believe the cozy fantasy wave isn’t just a trend—it’s a reaction. Readers are exhausted by grimdark. They want warmth, meaning, and beauty. They want to believe change is possible, even if only in a magical tavern served by angels. Magic, we’ve come to realize, is about transformation. And storytelling is our way of field-testing transformation.
As Father Roderick said, “We live in a magical world. What we lack is narrative.”
So let’s fix that. Let’s tell better stories. Let’s write about green birds, feathered quills, and tired monks.
Let’s launch magazines filled with fiction and radiant possibility. Let’s rediscover the joy of crafting stories again.
Tell us what you think in the comments! Can’t wait to hear from you.
And, we want to know: should we come back next week?
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