Why I Write These Books
By Ken Breniman

I didn’t set out to write books because I had answers. I wrote because I had grief — big, planetary, ancestral grief — and no map for what to do with it. I wrote because I needed to transmute sorrow into story. Because I felt the whispers of my guides, the pull of the unseen, and the undeniable reality of my own finitude.

Subversive Acts of Humanity came first. It’s part manifesto, part field guide, part love letter to what makes us wildly, beautifully human — especially the parts we’ve been taught to suppress: our tears, our tenderness, our fierce interdependence. I leaned on my training in yoga therapy, psychedelic integration, and thanatology, but more than that, I leaned on my bones. On what I knew from holding grief, from witnessing death, from learning with bonobos, and from watching communities collapse under the weight of disconnection. The book became a catalog of everyday rebellion — small acts of care and consciousness that might just save us.

Then came a three body solution — the speculative, queer, absurdist sci-fi I didn’t know I needed to write until the characters started speaking. What began as satire quickly became scripture. Chip, Tâm, and TaDoo — a thruple made of ancestral wisdom, Buddhist compassion, and alien devotion — offered a new cosmology. Through their messy love, cosmic mission, and unexpected rise to power, I got to explore questions we’re often too afraid to ask: What if queer love is the evolutionary upgrade we need? What if pleasure is sacred? What if tenderness is more powerful than any weapon?

That book let me play with the edges of reality, with death, with love, with what it means to hold power ethically. It was weird and raw and funny and, somehow, necessary. It gave me a way to tell the truth about how broken our world feels, while still imagining a way forward that doesn’t require perfection — only presence, devotion, and a little absurdity.

Writing both books deepened my connection to my guides — plant, animal, cosmic, and ancestral. It’s hard to explain, but I trust it now. The nudge. The pull. The sense that I’m not writing alone, that I’m part of a much larger, older conversation.

And through it all, I become more aware of my own mortality. Not in a fearful way — in a sacred way. I don’t know how much time I have, but I do know I want to use it wisely. I want to leave behind something tender and true. That’s why my next offering is an illustrated trilogy for the next generation:

• Three Friends and Anam Cara — a story about soul friendship, and how the right people at the right time can save your life.

• Three Friends and Compersion — an exploration of the radical joy we feel when others thrive, even if their joy has nothing to do with us.

• Three Friends and a Good Enough Death — a gentle invitation to sit with life’s only guarantee: that everything we love, we will someday lose.

These books won’t be perfect. They’re not meant to be. They’re meant to open doors. To spark conversations between kids and adults, between the living and the dying, between grief and joy. They’ll include activities, reflection questions, journaling prompts, and space to be real.

Why did I write these books?

Because I couldn’t not.
Because I’m dying, and so are you.
Because love is worth documenting.
Because grief is holy.
Because queer futures matter.
Because our ancestors are watching, and our descendants are listening.
Because I wanted to leave behind breadcrumbs made of stories, rituals, and radical tenderness.

I’m grateful for everyone who’s supported this work — editors, readers, clients, chosen family, and spirit allies. I’m still learning. I’m still refining. And I plan to keep writing until death and I make our final agreement.

Until then, I’ll keep planting stories like seeds. May they bloom in hearts I’ll never meet.