Welcome to my first Artist’s Update!

The Hush Halo has carried me far deeper than I expected when I wrote the first poem here on Substack roughly five months ago (July 2025). What began as a loose constellation of thoughts has grown into a world with its own pulse, its own rules and forms.

I want to take a moment to share where things stand, how I got here, and what comes next.

Lost on the Launching Pad

These past months have been a strange and steady kind of acceleration. A heavenly mess of connecting, learning, and realizing that something bigger was forming underneath my feet.

I had plans, but I didn’t plan to build a universe.
I definitely didn’t plan to publish a book.

I started by writing through the fog, trying to understand the future we’re walking toward. Somewhere in the process, the poems began forming a spine. A Realm emerged. A logic, a rhythm, a shape. This odd format became mine.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t writing random standalone pieces anymore. I was building a world. A world that felt alive enough to ask for an audience.

So here we are. Or at least, here I am.

My First

Hush Halo is no longer just a collection of posts scattered across Substack, but it is officially becoming a published poetry book. My first. And first dystopian fantasy poetry book with soundscapes—at least that I have come across.

Paradise Beyond Pulse (aka Book One) already exists, sort of, on my screen. It’s sort of structured, laid out, and practically ready to print.

In this update I’d like to tell you how I got from “publishing my first poem online” to “accidentally creating a book.”

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Becoming of “Something”

Nothing about this journey has been strategic. I wrote because I needed to. I published because I wanted to experiment. Until this project, I’d never shared anything online that truly belonged to me.

Somewhere while writing the early poems and experimenting with those first soundscapes, I stumbled into this current format. I have started to describe it as poetry with pulse. Catchy, right?

Your reactions and comments kept the momentum alive, from the very beginning. Without that support, I doubt I would have made it past those first three weeks. What began as an ongoing experiment slowly shifted into:

This… might actually become something.

My Binding Decision

The decision came slowly. From the beginning of this project, I’ve struggled to explain this strange concept and format in a way that feels coherent. I think that if not immediately, maybe not even soon, but eventually, it should start making sense to readers. To you.

I have a movie running in my mind as I write. But expressing it in digital form through notes and posts feels like liquid, quite hard to grab and comprehend.

So I made a choice. Hush Halo will become a physical. I believe it deserves more than to be scrolled past.

I want to offer readers the chance to sit with it instead of scrolling past it. A world like this asks to be put down and picked up again. To be paused, to be pondered. To live on real pages that can be turned.

Already Out There?

I crashed into the realization that I actually had already published almost everything needed for the first volume. Damn it!

Publishing a physical book forced me to rethink how the digital side of Hush Halo should exist. It felt odd to release a print edition while all the material remained freely available online.

This is me giving you a heads-up on upcoming changes:

Publishing Unreleased Pieces

Since most of the core material of Paradise Beyond Pulse has already appeared here, I’ll add some unreleased pieces from my drawer.

A portion of this bonus material will be published on Substack, but some I’ll reserve for the book so it holds something unseen. These include poems that never fit the weekly rhythm and pieces that simply needed more time.

Hiding Some Gems

I will also unpublish some older pieces, to eventually have a book-worthy collection that is not all available online. (So go and read it all now, while it’s still all there. )

Shift to a Time-Sensitive Paywall

So I decided to keep Hush Halo free for active readers. After 14 days, many posts will slide behind the paywall automatically.

Read more about the paywall:

Committing to This Carnival

Paradise Beyond Pulse is essentially complete. The layout is done, though I may redo it a couple of times. The shape of it feels right. The only thing left is choosing a release date.

Paradise Beyond Pulse was almost published during the holidays by impulse, after a tight weekend of hyperfocus.

But I’m glad I decided to pause and take a breather. December felt way too loud, and I felt I needed to get my head straight. Not entirely possible, really, but something in that direction.

So I moved the release to January. The big day will probably be either the 21st or the 28th.

At least this is the plan, and plans can change. Right?

January is a calmer month, readers have rested minds, and the days are slowly getting lighter again. You know, all the logical reasons to make a decision...

I will lean on urge people have in January to look for something new, maybe to feel excited about life again.

And, there’s Sci-Fi Day on February 1st, which feels like a small cosmic wink.

This is the Beginning of… What Exactly?

Paradise Beyond Pulse will be the opening book of Singularity of Systoics, one of the four major story arcs within the larger Hush Halo universe.

I’m learning about myself as a writer at the same time as I learn to write poetry, self-publish, design covers, and market a book. Not knowing the workload required and not having experience is probably a blessing, something I may realize later.

I’ve drafted the thin and winding roadmap. If everything holds, the entire arc will take me two to four years to complete.

I want to take you with me on an emotional journey through future landscapes, to explore the different directions it might take, and to let you feel those possibilities through my dystopian poetry. I genuinely hope you’re in.

The rest of Singularity of Systoics is planned for release throughout 2026. I’ve mapped the structure, the emotional beats, the migrations between worlds, and the loose hero’s and heroine’s journeys that will thread through it.

This Is Me Diving Into the Deep End

This is just the beginning. There will be plenty of poems that refuse to behave. And at least one poet who definitely refuses to behave… It’s ambitious and unfamiliar territory, yet it feels right.

Thank you for being here and supporting my work, truly. This project exists because someone on the other end is listening. I don’t take that lightly.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

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All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

Read more about my writing process:

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. Learn more in Square One.

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

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Artist's Update - December 13, 2025