The Clerk

Category: General

  • Beta Chapter Available for Book II

    Dear reader, please access a copy of the beta chapter here. NOTE: Open PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Chrome for proper rendering of text. If you see garbled text like this, use a different PDF reader to see the text clearly. Share your honest feedback, including whether the story makes you want to keep… →

  • Listen to Literary Titan’s Review of Vanguardian: Book I

    Listen on Spotify. Click image below. →

  • Quick Post: Antagonist Inspiration Is Closer Than You Might Think

    Some people have said Vanguardian: Book I is a bit of an emotional read. I believe that is due to how rounded the antagonists are. For example, the vicious gossips in the story are directly modeled after gossips I was involuntarily exposed to for years. Rounding those characters out and making them as close to… →

  • Why Writers Use Em Dashes—and Always Have

    Em dashes have been in use since the 15th century, emerging during the printing revolution, and the symbol later gained popularity in the 18th century. Em dashes have been a punctuation mark for centuries at this point, yet for some reason, after roughly 2022, many people are shocked when they see one and say to… →

  • New Reviews!

    New reviews are in for Vanguardian: Book I. Book Short Description: 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲 — 𝐀 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫, 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲 A war refugee and her supernaturally gifted son find shelter in the kingdom of Monde, where a marshal’s protection leads to dangerous political consequences. →

  • Quick Post: Experimenting with Scrivener

    I wrote my first novel using MS Word, and after the manuscript sat on various hard drives for over 10 years, I had no idea I would need to reformat it in an entirely different program for it to be appropriately ready to publish. Pre-publishing, I used Atticus to format the manuscript, but with that… →

  • DNFing: When Assumptions Eclipse Story

    I’d like to start this post by thanking my current readers and those who took the time to review my debut novel, Vanguardian. I value your feedback. This post is about the few who only want stories catered to their beliefs and to meet the trends of the day. This is not a rant. It’s… →

  • Goodreads Giveaway

    Enter to be one of 100 readers to receive a free e-book copy of Vanguardian. A Dark Romance & Introduction to the Vanguardian Military Science Fiction Series The empire of Monde is the envy of its neighbors. While fleeing her war-threatened home, Nasrin finds refuge in Monde, where a fateful encounter with a mysterious being… →

  • Reviews are In!

    Initial reviews have come in. Get a copy of Vanguardian. @theclerkauthor →

  • Why I Write as The Clerk

    Hello Readers, My name is Sylvia Petro. My stories are inspired by many things I have experienced, observed, and meditated on in my life thus far. For my current series, after years of consideration (Vanguardian itself is over ten years old), I decided to publish under “The Clerk,” a pseudonym I first chose around 2016.… →