The original version of A Place Outside the Wild was, believe it or not, much more massive than the doorstop I eventually put out.

Early on in the editing process, I realized that the core of the story that I wanted to tell was the time period well after the early days of the apocalypse. Stories of surviving the initial event are fun, but they can also be redundant. It’s one thing that the lion’s share of post-apocalyptic movies or books all do, and I was more interested in what happened after, because there weren’t many satisfactory examples that I’d run into.

That left a lot of the book on the chopping block, and while it was the right decision to do, the character of Sticks took the biggest brunt of that, because he didn’t make it to the “current” period of the Z-Day universe. I got an opportunity to resurrect one of Sticks’ stories for the Places Beyond the Wild anthology, and after some changes to the status quo (more to come soon), I’m happy to share it here for you now.

More stories down the road? I am a digital packrat, so it’s certainly possible. You’ll just have to wait and see.