Hush Halo: Making Of

My Book Is Out · Making Of Rendering Humanity

Tue, 12 May 2026 09:30:06 GMT

Rendering Humanity is officially out TODAY, May 12, 2026. As I’m writing this, Hush Halo Store on Amazon has not fully yet, but with some patience, you can purchase my both books globally.

Buy from Amazon (printed)

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This post is purely to announce that the book is out today. No deep reflections here. So feel free to switch directly into shopping gear.

If you’re unable to buy my book for any reason right now, I appreciate you supporting my work by commenting and sharing my work to your network.

Rendering Humanity - Poetry Collection

The book moves deeper into the Hush Halo universe. Into identity, optimization, emotional control, artificial clarity, and that nagging feeling that under all this man-made perfection, something feels simply, well, wrong.

The narrator voice became more personal this time. I feel that in Rendering Humanity my poetry is less about observing the world from distance and more living inside the cracks of it. Read more about this book, and the process of making it:

Buy from Amazon (printed)

Buy an eBook

Please, Remember to Review

I would love to hear your honest feedback on Amazon, on Goodreads and on Hush Halo’s Readers Corner.

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. More background: Square One.

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🖤 Always happy to hear your thoughts. ↓

Making of Rendering Humanity · Part 3

Fri, 08 May 2026 11:58:44 GMT

Who wouldn’t love fake, dystopian gardening? This made-up Black Tulip on my book cover embodies desire without longing.

In this post I’m opening up how I design my poetry books beyond the writing itself. Covers, structure, recurring elements, visuals, and the small decisions that turn a collection into something you can actually experience.

First things first. My new book Rendering Humanity is now in Amazon’s publishing queue. Release date is Tuesday, May 12. [AMAZON]

A Book to Treasure

I’ve been deep in something a bit more concrete lately. Writing and editing, for sure, but also shaping the book as an object. The cover, the structure, the contents. The point where this stops being just text and becomes something to hold and treasure.

The Cover

I feel, that the cover is often the hardest decision, especially with poetry. A novel can lean on story, characters, and setting. A poetry book has to signal tone, not plot. It has to invite without explaining too much.

I feel like I made all the hard decisions with my first book. Now, with the second one, I more or less build on those first choices. Good or bad.

What the Flower?!

On Rendering Humanity, I ended up sticking with the same core visual I introduced in the first book. The flower.

Which is funny, because it doesn’t directly exist in the story at all.

But somehow, that’s kind of the point. Let me explain.

The flower became a symbol. Something organic in a controlled, constructed fantasy. Something so fragile, but here it is in persistent, optimized format. With a slightly steampunk-inspired aesthetic, something clicked. The contrast worked. Soft versus mechanical. Growth versus control.

My made up flowers give me a visual anchor that cuts through the dystopian, while remaining beautiful and feminine. It feel that it gave the whole concept a visual identity that I can carry across books.

Adding My Nerdy

There’s also a small detail in each book, I had fun with. At the very end of the book, there’s a short one spread note about this fictional flower. As if it exists outside the main narrative, yet leading the concept.

Designing a Poetry Book

The inside of a book can be super simple or as complex as you like.

Why Hush Halo books needed some relevant, repeatable elements?

Concept poetry adds real complexity to the structure. In Hush Halo each poem has a written layer and a soundscape you can access by scanning a QR code next to it. For example, Rendering Humanity has 134 soundscapes, each matching its poem.

Rendering Humanity, Table of Contents

Book With Lungs

Images act like lungs for the book. They help the reader pace themselves and take a breather when needed.

My first book was visually more straightforward. I was testing things quite randomly while trying to keep it simple enough. No red strings attached.

This time, on my second book, I moved toward continuity.

I built the visuals as an ongoing stream. Instead of isolated images, they can be placed side by side horizontally to form a continuous flow.

Images in Rendering Humanity form a continuous flow.

Abandoning Some

Not everything I write makes it into a book. Some pieces are too similar. Some belong to a different part of the arc. Some just don’t hold up when placed next to others.

My editing process leaves plenty of material to share here on Substack, that never made it to my books. Consider subscribing for full access.

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Q: Is there something here you’d like me to go deeper into? Did this bring up any questions?

Making of Rendering Humanity · Part 2

Wed, 06 May 2026 10:25:53 GMT

In this post I talk about writing multilayered concept poetry and about being a serial writer. I also touch on narrator voice, in relation to poetry.

Still feels a bit unreal to announce this, but… my new book Rendering Humanity is now in Amazon’s publishing queue. Release date is Tuesday, May 12. [AMAZON]

Writing a Series

I’ll start by saying, I made it all up.

None of this structure existed when I started back in 2024. I was just making stuff. Writing, experimenting, figuring it out as I went.

I feel there’s a structure behind it now.

Book Is a Portal

I don’t really see Hush Halo as just a book project. Even though books are probably the most obvious output, it’s just one layer. The printed book is just one way, one portal, to step into the realm of Hush Halo.

What I actually see myself building is closer to a system, than a book. I juggle and compound various elements that hold multiple forms: poetry, sound, visual hints, narrative threads. That’s probably why I call my art ‘Poetry with Pulse’.

I want each poem to stand on its own, as if it could be framed and placed on a wide, empty wall and still hold the power to crack that wall on its own.

Writing Concept Poetry

One thing I’ve been thinking about is how different this process feels compared to what I usually imagine poetry to be.

Many poets I know, seem to write from the inside out. They gather material first, then later find the thread that ties it together. That makes sense if you’re writing in the moment, following instinct, pouring out your soul.

I don’t really work like that.

I start with hard focus on theme. For Hush Halo, I’ve built out a larger arc behind the scenes, a timeline and belief systems. Not just for this one book, but the full concept.

There’s a steady backbone I lean on my writing. Even if it doesn’t always show, it gives me something to hold onto while I write, keeps me from drifting.

Narrator’s Voice

The narrator’s voice is one of the creative layers I’ve focused on Rendering Humanity. I play with how personal my poetry feels to you as a reader.

I’ve wanted to keep the voice restrained, slightly detached, but not cold. Still personal. I’ve intentionally shifted the voice to mainly first person. This “I” borrows you a lens to experience the weird world through.

As if it could be you living in this man-made perfection, slowly starting to crack it.

Sometimes I feel, this is all probably unnecessarily complex.

But then again, so am I.

Honestly,
dystopian poetry isn’t
exactly a mainstream lane
anyway, so I might as well
go all in.

Q: Does the complexity pull you in, or push you away? I try to keep my work accessible and relatable, despite the weird dystopian angle.

Making of Rendering Humanity · Part 1

Mon, 04 May 2026 09:08:01 GMT

First things first. My new book Rendering Humanity is now in Amazon’s publishing queue. Release date is Tuesday, May 12. [AMAZON]

In this post I offer a sneak peak on my dystopian poetry book Rendering Humanity.

What’s About to Render

Rendering Humanity continues the Systoics tale in Hush Halo concept.

In this volume, we follow a quiet unraveling of the life and mind through a perfected system that cracks slightly when faced with individuality.

The collection begins in stillness. Humanity is no longer expressed, but processed. Reactions are shaped before they fully form, and experiences are rescripted into coherence and compatibility. When nothing is denied, something is always left behind.
Emotions no longer exist on their own, they are resolved in advance. Grief and anger dissolve, anxiety settles before it becomes loud. This feels like care, as if being understood.
Life stops shaping the self. Time passes cleanly and weightless. Who you are is curated, your identity no longer evolves but is formed for function. What remains is safe and precise, too light to carry significance.
Understanding follows in tiny moments, with the recognition that who you are might actually be meaningful after all.

Rendering Humanity reveals, yet leaves you empty, questioning comfort and embracing the rising tide of internal chaos. Cracks in the all-knowing system become visible, and you begin to see the true cost of clarity.

What the hell is going on?
How did I end up here?
Who am I in this?

Feels familiar?
Not in a sci-fi way
but more like the everyday
questions you face today.

Q: What do you want to learn about my process? Are you more curious about the writing or the publishing part?

Help Me Choose a Cover Poem · Making Of · April 30, 2026

Sam Oldman — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:57:45 GMT

Really quickly, please help me choose the cover poem for my upcoming poetry book, Rendering Humanity.

Context you should know: the cover poem exists in audio format only. A QR code on the back cover will lead to this sample, giving the reader a sense of what’s inside the book.
Goal: to make a random reader intrigued and excited enough to buy the book.

I’ve only added soundscapes here, as that’s what the reader will have as well.

#1 Decomposing with Manners

#2 Blind Era

#3 Butterfly

Rendering Humanity is a dystopian poetry collection with soundscapes. This is the second book in the Hush Halo story arc, scheduled for release in May 2026.

Thanks for helping me out!

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.