Gauthic Times: The Bill Gauthier Newsletter #155, or You Don’t Need to Be a Prophet

Hello, friends.

This first full week of 2026 was the longest year ever. In terms of the personal and as well as the global, what a way to start a new year! A nightmare if ever there was one. That said, there were small sprinkles of good this week and a little writing work was accomplished.

Let’s get into it.

Welcome to the 155^th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and how creativity may help us deal with the horrors around us. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m not breaking any records but I’m thankful to have any audience.

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As often happens, returning to work after a vacation always hits me hard. Add to that the basketball games and other things going on with the family and friends, and I sadly didn’t write as much as I would’ve liked. I added just over 500 words to Four Moons this week. While the words came in dribs and drabs, I feel like they were good words. I’ve also reached a delicate spot in the story with many moving pieces and lots of things that need to happen.

I also added the second installment of Four Moons to Patreon this week. This was the one that all paid-Patrons have access to and the third installment, which starts for $5 tiered Patrons and above, went out Saturday morning.

I also spoke to another friend about an idea that I mentioned last week. If I can get this idea off the ground, it’ll be really cool. I’ll be talking about it with my first-mentioned friend soon.

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“I suspect 2026 will be violent and it will be frightening, but I also feel as though it could a watershed year for change, real change.” –from Gauthic Times: The Bill Gauthier Newsletter #153, orSeason’s Gratings, December 21^st, 2025

We’re just over a week into 2026 and it’s been filled with danger and violence. From the invasion of Venezuela to the murder of Renée Nicole Good this week, violence has been rampant. Hold onto your butts, folks, it’ll get worse.

Renée Nicole Good’s life ended at the hands of an ICE agent, which is basically the 21^st century term for American Gestapo. She had the audacity of being peaceful and, perhaps, a trifle condescending to a Big Man With A Gun. Her punishment was execution. His? Well…has there been punishment?

Instead this poet and mother, a woman who was loved and loved others, who only wanted peace in this world, died in the most horrible way and then has been vilified by people in power trying to say that what everyone sees with their own eyes is not true.

I don’t want to write about this. Not in my newsletter—which is supposed to be about my work and things that I find interesting—and not anywhere else. But how can I not? It’s as troubling to me as every other goddamn thing that’s been going on.

Several months ago, when Charlie Kirk was killed, people lost their jobs for pointing out that they guy was a Bad Man. He promoted violence and did what many on the Right like to do; act like intellectuals while at the same time putting down anyone who actually is. His whole schtick to “debate” college students was openly known to be a farce. And since his death, his widow has been trotted out as a woman of integrity and sorrow. Teachers have lost their jobs for pointing out that he was basically a modern day Nazi.

And now? Where’s the outrage? Will CBS have a town hall with Renée Good’s widow?

This should be the point where we start truly organizing. But can that happen? The United States is so big and so divided, can it?

As a writer, my job is to postulate the famous question, “What if…?” From that question, I follow where the logic seems to take me. I know I’m not alone on this and there are far better writers and storytellers who can predict where things may go. But none of this is a surprise to anyone with any sense of history and/or logic.

How can I sit down and write about monsters and werewolves and weird shit out to hurt humanity if humanity itself is so fucked up? But then, the answer is right there, isn’t it? It’s an escape. If my characters can face nearly insurmountable supernatural terrors, then we can deal with the real life terrors. Right? At the very least, it’s taking the anger and sorrow I’m feeling and putting it into something productive.

Art and creativity does that. It allows the creator and the audience to channel their emotions and deal with real life in a way that may be more productive or helpful to themselves and others.

Renée Nicole Good, I suspect, knew that since she was a poet and parent. Which is why her last words were, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” Those are the words of someone who knows that hatred and violence are not the only way to deal with things. Imagine if her murderer—and those who sicced him, and others like him, on the general population—knew there was an option other than hatred and violence.

I hope and pray, in my own way, that Renée Nicole Good’s needless death will spur people to resist, rebel, and revolt. For me, that means hitting the keyboard and writing the best I can, it means creating to inspire, to hope, and to move. It’s small, but it’s something.

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That’s this week’s newsletter. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support.

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