Search for:

Becoming Animals

reviews: 13
ratings: 15 (avg rating 4.60)

The FATOFF Conspiracy

reviews: 6
ratings: 18 (avg rating 3.50)

Harvest

reviews: 11
ratings: 18 (avg rating 4.50)

Suddenly, Paris (Many Worlds, One Life #1)

reviews: 6
ratings: 8 (avg rating 4.00)

Twin Time

reviews: 4
ratings: 5 (avg rating 4.40)

SciFi Bites: A collection of short stories.

Pipsqueak Articles, sci-fi bites, short story

Time travel, Hitler, and killing babies–a short audio story

by Olga Werby February 27, 2020

What if you could go back in time and kill Hitler? This is a premise of many science fiction stories. Here’s my version:

Time Travel Suicide Therapy

by Olga Werby July 14, 2019

“Can I help you?” Dax stood up and quickly covered the screen with his body. It was five minutes to closing time and he wasn’t interested in helping on yet another bored teenager, or house partner, or grandpa, or history student, or whatever to fulfill their sick time travel dream.…

Shifting Sands

by Olga Werby June 11, 2019

The wind howled northward, as normal for this time of the year. The angle of planetary spin resulted in a decreased amount of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere during this portion of the orbit cycle. The atmosphere precipitated onto the surface as ammonia and water snow, lowering the air pressure,…

Word Magic, narrated by Mariah Avix of 600 Second Saga

by Olga Werby August 2, 2018

Word Magic is a short story prequel to a larger piece of fiction I’m working on about language and its power to shape the world. I love Mariah’s work. She brings magic to my stories and to those of other writers. Please visit her site and subscribe to her work.…

600 Second Saga: The Perfect Gene

by Olga Werby January 3, 2018

“The Perfect Gene” — a short story about cultural biases narrated by Mariah Avix, 600 Second Saga Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy, found at http://insani-x.com/ Read along with the audio story.

600 Second Saga: The Test

by Olga Werby October 4, 2017

It was beside me on the bed when I woke up — the little bag to pack my most cherished belongings before leaving to take the test. Our dorm has eight living in one great room and none of us heard anything in the night. No one ever does. This…

Another Wave of Refugees

by Olga Werby October 3, 2017

“Another wave of refugees is arriving,” the TV news announcer said in a grave voice. George Tiggleson, the news anchor for XWTZ Christian Voice of Americas, has been practicing this voice — deep, resonant, with a slight lamenting quality — for almost twenty years. This voice got him this job.…

Cultural Bias, Interface Design, Pipsqueak Articles, Product Design Strategy

Type & Brand

by Olga Werby November 2, 2010

Helvetica: Period.

Cultural shifts as expressed in type: the story of Helvetica.

Trajan is the Movie Font.

Some fonts are in vogue for certain industries only.

Tags:branding emotional reaction product design typeface user attitude visual comprehension visual processing

← Language and thought in user-centered design

Thinking About the Future of Reading →

book promotion, My Books, Newsletter, Pipsqueak Articles

Swan Lake, The Ultimate Sacrifice Story

by Olga Werby April 8, 2024

When I was about five, I was obsessed with Swan Lake. I adored the score and played the record over and over again. I remember attending the ballet, but it was the music and the story that truly captivated my soul. The music, written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between 1875…

Musings About Time

by Olga Werby March 12, 2024

The past is gone. The future hasn’t happened yet. The present is a liminal space between two non-existent things. We’re encouraged to stay present and live in the moment. But who really does that? Primarily, it’s young children and adults under duress. Young children live in the moment; their time…

The Opposite of Play is Not Work But Depression

by Olga Werby February 11, 2024

People who are happy are able to turn even routine tasks into play. Or perhaps it is the other way around — people who can to turn routine tasks into play are generally happier. We know that people who manage to turn repetitive and tedious tasks — like working on…

Setting. Characters. Story.

by Olga Werby January 11, 2024

Setting and characters dictate how the story will play out when told. The same story can be told in a Victorian setting, as a space opera, or as a modern day fiction. “Pride and Prejudice” in space? Sure! Darcy can be a dashing if deeply flawed space captain alien. The…

Builders

by Olga Werby December 1, 2023

Humans are builders. We are all given different talents and resources in life that we use to try to construct happiness for ourselves and for those we love. This continuous process of creation is not only quintessentially human but also the most common thing all animals do. All animals build,…

We Own Nothing

by Olga Werby November 10, 2023

We are living through an interesting transition as we change our relationship with physical possessions. Physical ownership is giving way to a preference for virtual goods and services. For millennia, societies operated on a “favor bank” system, where performing favors for friends and members of the community built goodwill. This…

Fog of War

by Olga Werby October 11, 2023

Once again, we find ourselves bearing witness to yet another war with a non-stop spectrum of horrific stories and images that make our souls shudder and our hearts break. It is easy to get drawn into a narrative of good guys versus bad guys. It is easy to find ourselves…

The Self Published Science Fiction Competition 2023

by Olga Werby September 13, 2023

So it is the end of another summer, and that means it is the start of another writing competition — SPSFC or The Self Published Science Fiction Competition. This is 3rd year this competition is being held and it is my third year participating (with 3 different books). I got…

Neanderthal in The Back Yard

by Olga Werby August 11, 2023

I was around ten when I had a recurrent dream. Back then, I was good at lucid dreaming — I could make myself dream the same story for weeks on end and remember all of it. It was similar to writing in that it was like watching a story unfold…

The Eliminati

by Olga Werby July 11, 2023

We live in a society where people acquire vast amounts of stuff and then run out of space to store it all. Some respond by adopting minimalism; true believers embrace the clean aesthetics of clear floors, empty shelves, and bare closets. Of course, in our disposable consumer culture, these same…

Different Kinds of Stories

by Olga Werby May 12, 2023

I believe we can distill the plethora of story types into two main categories: feverish cliff hangers that compel their readers to read on through the night, and the more tranquil tales that follow a structure of “this happened, and then this, and then this.” Of course, many stories offer…

Developing a Story

by Olga Werby April 10, 2023

How does one choose a story? Or does a story choose its teller? For me, random triggers in my subconscious coalesce and spark inspiration that is not yet a story but rather the embryo of one. That seed, with time, might ripen enough to be worth planting. But the seed…

Playing with ChatGPT

by Olga Werby March 7, 2023

$Julia set fractal gif$

I am a bit late to the ChatGPT bandwagon — people all over the internet are pointing out badly written prose. But I did want to give it a try. I have hundreds of story ideas that I have jotted down over the years. Most won’t ever be written into…

D.R.I.P.S. Project
Educational Evaluation
Pipsqueak Productions LLC
The Company Therapist
The Cost of Chicken