Big, hot, sweet, shiny, bright, and so sexy

By Tessa Pacelli / September 15, 2025 /

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…

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Poker was AI’s first Sun Run [1]

By Tessa Pacelli / August 15, 2025 /

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…

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ANATOMY OF A DELETED SCENE – THE GARBAGE MAN

By Tessa Pacelli / July 15, 2025 /

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…

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It’s giving hole in the head: trepanning and magic

By Tessa Pacelli / June 15, 2025 /

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…

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THE GARBAGE MAN’s Trash-Eating Bugs

By Tessa Pacelli / May 15, 2025 /

  Beneath the surface of the world we live in lies a vast separate universe, one that knows not and cares not of us: the universe of microbes. Conservative estimates suggest the existence of at least 1 billion different species of microbes on Earth. Scientists have “discovered” but a small fraction. The human body contains…

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Mind Control For Fun and Profit

By Tessa Pacelli / April 14, 2025 /

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…

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