Posts by Tessa Pacelli

Growing up, I was a huge Trekkie, obsessed with both the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG to those in the know). When I started in the fandom in the nineties, TNG was already in hard re-run mode, but somehow still way ahead of its time. The show tackled euthanasia, censorship, gender…

This week, my debut, THE GARBAGE MAN (launching 9-23-25! Preorder here (Amazon) or here (B&N)!) was honored with not one but two glowing reviews from trade publications: Publisher’s Weekly / BookLife made TGM an Editor’s Pick had this to say: “A twist-at-every-turn thriller about addiction and the power of AI.” And the grand-daddy of the…

In THE GARBAGE MAN, our MC Kayla dreams of playing poker professionally. She doesn’t want to work for anyone. She doesn’t want to sit in an office. She doesn’t want to trudge each day into a soulless gleaming high-rise in Midtown Manhattan, like so many of her Harvard Business School classmates. She wants to run…

In last month’s newsletter, I promised I’d share a deleted scene from THE GARBAGE MAN. Here it is. I hope you like it. I hope it gives you insight into the story, even if you don’t (yet!!) know the characters well. Enjoy & thank you for reading!   EX-CHAPTER TEN Setting NYC and Rikers Island…

Trepanning is the oldest known surgical intervention in human history. Derived from the Ancient Greek for “drill”, this stomach-churning procedure involved poking or scraping a hole into a lucky recipient’s head. Archaeologists have excavated hole-bearing skulls dating from at least the Neolithic period, which means that starting around 10,000 years ago, our ancestors were legit…

Let’s talk about Mind control!! LSD. Mescaline. Nazis. Communists. Cults. CIA. Korean War conscripts. Manchurian Candidates. No, not that! We’re not talking about nefarious forces controlling your mind. We’re talking about the mind doing the controlling. That is, controlling a computer from your mind, without moving or touching or speaking anything. Telekinesis! For real! If…