Oakland has always been a city that carries weight. History, culture, resistance, beauty, and danger — all layered on top of each other like the city itself was built to hold contradictions.
When I started building the world of Hope After Dark, I wanted a setting that felt alive. Not just a backdrop, but a character. Oakland after dark is a different city than Oakland in daylight. And that tension — between what the city shows and what it hides — became the foundation of the entire Oakland Moon Series.
This essay goes behind the world-building decisions that shaped Book One and the series that followed.