The Shale Project

The Shale Project The Shale Project is a multimedia storytelling initiative roughly in the shape of a planet. Welcome!

You've stolen our hearts matey! And now we will... respectfully ask for your support backing our Kickstarter at a tier t...
11/21/2025

You've stolen our hearts matey! And now we will... respectfully ask for your support backing our Kickstarter at a tier that respects both your interests and financial capacity. YARRRR 🏴‍☠️

🦜LINK IN BIO 🦜

11/18/2025

"Behold; from language, life."

The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming is a slow-burn fantasy roadtrip novel with mental health advocacy at its core. It's lyrical, it's introspective, and it's wondering if you'd like to sit down and have a cup of tea together.

We're releasing a fully immersive, orchestrated audiobook version - and we want you to be part of the magic! 📚🎶

Back our Kickstarter (which funded in under 6 days!) to support the production of 20+ hours of spellbinding storytime. The Heretic's Guide audiobook will combine narration with atmospheric ambience, sound effects, character themes, and over 2 hours of original music to transport you to the vivid, mysterious world of Shale.

🎵 We've something for everyone: not an audiobook listener? You can pick up the instrumental album! 🎵

📘 New to Heretic's Guide? eBooks and signed paperbacks can be added to your pledge! 📘

🌟 Superfan who has everything? Sienna's offering unreleased "deleted scenes" from the original manuscript! 🌟

Support small publishers. Celebrate the human-made. Uplift independent artists. The world needs more passion projects!

Make your pledge before November 28 and jump into one more glorious unknown with us. ☄️

ALT TEXT:

A poster showcasing the Kickstarter for Sienna Tristen's audiobook of The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming. The middle of the image is a photo of Sienna, a small human with short blonde hair wearing chunky black-and-pink headphones and a patterned magenta scarf, a black long-sleeve shirt, and a pleated blue skirt. They are seated with a copy of The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming on their lap. The book is open and their face bears the pensive expression of someone reading. Behind them is a detailed wallpaper, coloured in teal and dusky rose, bearing motifs of snakes, bees, moons and flowers. On the top and bottom of the image, and on top of a blue circle in the middle-left space, text appears in white serif font.

TEXT: Sienna Tristen - The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming Orchestrated Audiobook. 20+ hours of narration. 2+ hou

11/14/2025

If she had it her way, Bunny of .n.honey fame would have recorded every voice, instrument, and sound effect in The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming audiobook. 😺📢🎶

As it is, she must remain NEGLECTED and ENTIRELY DENIED LOVE!!!! And all this despite the fact that she is this project's biggest advocate, and urgently needs you to hear that there are only TWO WEEKS LEFT in our Kickstarter campaign.

We have surpassed an incredible 110% funded, but still we (like Bunny) yearn for more! If you haven't backed the project yet, go check it out in our bio 👀 Both the audiobook and instrumental album will never be cheaper than they are right now!

And hey: for every backer we get tonight, a new Bunny picture will be posted in our story so she can finally get the unending tide of attention that she deserves. 💕💕💕

😺 DO IT FOR HER 😺

Looking for some good conversation to keep you company as you get cozy in the chilly weather? ❄️Come hang out with and ...
11/14/2025

Looking for some good conversation to keep you company as you get cozy in the chilly weather? ❄️

Come hang out with and .l.stuart this Monday November 17th from 7-8:30pm for a delightful fireside chat and celebration! They'll be talking worldbuilding, indie publishing, audiobook making, and more 🌟

This will also be at about the halfway point of the Kickstarter—and we'd love to bounce around about all the support we've received so far! If you back the project during the event (and let us know!), you can get a live thank you out of Sienna. Maybe they'll even read you a poem 👀

The link to the event on P.L.'s YouTube channel is in our bio! Hope to see you there ❤️‍🔥📚🎶

11/13/2025

Pause, breathe, enjoy the vast beauty of the earth. The days are getting shorter here, and the dark is creeping in, but that's all the more reason to dream of faraway fantasylands.

And why not add a moment of soothing storytime while we're at it? 📖

The orchestrated audiobook of The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: a steadfast companion for your journeys, no matter how far you may roam.

Back the Kickstarter before November 28 to help bring this adventure to life! ❤️‍🔥📚🎶

🎉🎉🎉 IT HAS HAPPENED!!!! 🎉🎉🎉The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming orchestrated audiobook has officially FUNDED on !!!!!6 day...
11/10/2025

🎉🎉🎉 IT HAS HAPPENED!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming orchestrated audiobook has officially FUNDED on !!!!!

6 days
61 backers
$5,4024 CAD

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who helped us make this happen in such a rush of joy!!!

Get ready for more gleeful, truly chaotic promo over the next 18 days! 😍 Into the GLORIOUS unknown!!!!!

11/10/2025

Roses smelling of cream & fresh laundry; summer sunshine bottled for the darker days ahead. And a silver flute, sweet as birdsong. Join me in the garden, would you? 🌹🐦🎶

The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming audiobook will have 2+ hours of original music interwoven with the narration. But if you back the Kickstarter before November 28, you can also snag the exclusive instrumental album!

Beautiful, handcrafted tunes for all your daily needs: public transit! Writing projects! Swordfighting class! Promenading the fairy garden!

Check out what else our Kickstarter has to offer through the link in bio!

11/09/2025

In the five days since we launched this Kickstarter, we have been blown away by everyone's support! At the time of this post, we are $399 away from reaching our goal.

We're celebrating over here. We're eating snacks. We're playing Hades 2. I (Avi) finally beat Brendan at Yugioh. Brendan has a migraine (guess I beat him that badly). Sienna has gotten their hair done and looks VERY cute.

All this to say: it's been a great week, and we would love your help racing to the finish with us to see this thing funded!
..because once it funds (manifesting it babieee), then socials promo can get Really Weird. I'll break out the baby photos. Sienna will create gentle aesthetic videos just to even things out. Brendan won't do s**t with socials, but he will give us all the audio files to make it happen. You'll all share our stories and be like "you're so funny and cool, and that is why I'm sharing this and also backing it."

For real: THANK YOU!!!!! Now let's DO THIS THING.

🌟 Link in bio 🌟

What do you MEAN we just crossed $4000?!?! 😍We're only 3 days into this campaign, and are delighted and overwhelmed by ...
11/08/2025

What do you MEAN we just crossed $4000?!?! 😍

We're only 3 days into this campaign, and are delighted and overwhelmed by everyone's support! Thank you to the 44 people who have jumped right onto this project and given us such a boost of energy. Your support and excitement is music to our ears!!! (Get it??)

And now... it's a race to $5000! 🏃🏃🏃

Grab a pal and join us on the adventure!!!

Hang on, you might be saying: who is this Heretic, and what Homecoming does he need a Guide for??If you're new to the se...
11/06/2025

Hang on, you might be saying: who is this Heretic, and what Homecoming does he need a Guide for??

If you're new to the series, here's what you can expect:

🐉 Myths, legends, folklore galore
⛏️ Fantasy archaeology & linguistics
💙 Mental health-driven narrative
🏞️ Roadtrip story to beautiful, mysterious places
🫂 Queerplatonic intimacy between a total cinnamon roll and the ????? he befriends

“Life is transformation. You change or you die.”

Ashamed of his past and overwhelmed by his future, Ronoah Genoveffa Elizzi-denna Pilanovani feels too small for his own name. After a graceless exit from his homeland in the Acharrioni desert, his anxiety has sabotaged every attempt at redemption. Asides from a fiery devotion to his godling, the one piece of home he brought with him, he has nothing.

That is, until he meets Reilin. Beguiling, bewildering Reilin, who whisks Ronoah up into a cross-continental pilgrimage to the most sacred place on the planet. The people they encounter on the way—children of the sea, a priestess and her band of storytellers, the lonely ghosts of monsters—are grim and whimsical in equal measure. Each has their part to play in rewriting Ronoah’s personal narrative.

One part fantasy travelogue, one part emotional underworld journey, The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming is a sumptuous, slow-burning story about stories and the way they shape our lives.

🌟 Winner of the 2019 Readerviews Award for Fantasy & the 2019 IPPY Award for Fantasy!
🌟 The silky, sumptuous language of Sofia Samatar's Stranger in Olondria
🌟 The sweet, self-deprecating protagonist of Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor
🌟 The meandering philosophical talks of Becky Chambers' Monk & Robot series
🌟 The wide-eyed wonder for life (even through sorrow) of hit indie game Outer Wilds

Ready to jump into the glorious unknown? Back our Kickstarter before Nov 28 and help bring the audio version of this tale to life!

KICKSTARTER LINK IN BIO

ICYMI: we just launched our Kickstarter for the immersive audiobook of Sienna Tristen's slow-burn fantasy novel, The Her...
11/05/2025

ICYMI: we just launched our Kickstarter for the immersive audiobook of Sienna Tristen's slow-burn fantasy novel, The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming! ❤️‍🔥📚🎶

Reasons we're excited (and you might be too):

✍️ No AI - this project is 100% human-made and 100% a labour of love.
💖 Small team, big hearts - support independent artists making ambitious projects!
🫂 Mental health rep - a narrative that takes care of its chronically anxious protagonist (& takes care of its reader too).
👂 Increasing accessible publishing - audiobooks open the door for so many more people to access & enjoy art!

Back the project before November 28 and leap into the glorious unknown with us!

LINK IN BIO!

11/05/2025

The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming is a lyrical, introspective road trip fantasy with a focus on mental health challenges and a cosmically queerplatonic relationship at its heart. After years of readers requesting an audio version, we're throwing a Kickstarter to fund production of a fully immersive, orchestrated audiobook! ❤️‍🔥📚🎶🎧

Campaign runs until November 28th. Back the project and discover a wealth of exclusive goodies including:

🎶 Original music
🎨 Character art commissions
📝 Never-before-seen drafts of the original manuscript
🎧 ...and of course, one wondrous & whimsical audiobook!

Into the glorious unknown!

❤️‍🔥 LINK IN BIO ❤️‍🔥

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The Story of a Planet

Shale can be described as a multimedia storytelling initiative roughly in the shape of a planet. It serves as a hub for the different stories we intend to publish, and is essentially a world building playground. The website itself offers you the tools to navigate different parts of the world featured in our stories, and gives more in-depth information on these places. Feel free to ask us questions about the specific places as well–your questions are what help us know what kind of information people might like to see when exploring!

Our flagship project is The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming, Book One: Theory, written by our own Sienna Tristen. She, alongside Avi Silver, are the two current creators and contributors to The Shale Project.

For more information on the project, please visit our website: www.welcometoshale.com

Interested in ordering The Heretic’s Guide? Order your copy off of Amazon or inquire at your local bookstores! https://amzn.to/2w2Bp74