What is An Author?

May 14, 2024

Borges — The Enigmatist of Enigmas

Borges built labyrinths out of language. A meditation on the writer who made infinity feel like home.

Rilke — The Notebooks of a Poet in Paris

Rilke's Malte Laurids Brigge is a notebook of pure perception — the city as terror, consciousness as trap.

Camus — The Stranger of Yesteryear

Meursault is still the most honest man in fiction. What Camus knew about absurdity that we keep forgetting.

The word author comes from Latin, auctor, meaning, 'one who causes to grow'. As a lifetime author, this is exactly the why of writing.

When it comes to writing for me everything that is made is part of the project, e.g., sketches, voice memos, notes jotted on napkins and coasters, youtube viewing history, articles consumed, podcasts half-completed, interviews and late night conversations, family trees, and the relative positions of the stars...

Past Works

A journey from poetry, to essays, to novels, to one-liner jokes, and standup routines, have all comprised my authorial craft. A ship has no place at sea without a bearing, so to, an author has no place with a pen without a telos, a driving theory, a raison d'être, (a justification for existence). All works written by one man are the same work, though a robust kaleidoscope of many facets and angles within. I believe it was James Joyce who noted that all authors only have one story within them, and they just keep re-writing it.

Published Works

Nineteen Stories (2017).

Joseph Voelbel is an AI Learning Experience Designer, Author, and Philosopher. Titles include Pay Attention to Bitcoin (2024) a punchy digital primer on sound money, and Nineteen Stories (2017), a literary collection exploring the unknown.