📰 The M.I.D Newsletter | Issue #9
Within The Mind
Author Makitia Thompson
From the Desk of Minds In Design
Editor’s Note
There are seasons of creativity that feel loud.
The kind where everything arrives at once; ideas, projects, urgency, momentum. You can feel the movement before you even know what form it’s about to take.
And then there are quieter seasons.
Not empty ones. Not stagnant ones. Just quieter. More internal. More reflective. The kind of creative season where the work begins deeper beneath the surface, where the stories forming are not necessarily shouting for attention but instead waiting to be understood properly before they are offered to the world.
This issue of The M.I.D Newsletter lives in that kind of season.
Welcome to Issue #9 of Within The Mind.
This month feels especially rooted in emotional truth, in atmosphere, in the parts of storytelling that often begin not with plot, but with feeling. Some books emerge because you have a concept. Others emerge because you have a wound, a question, a fear, or a sentence that won’t leave you alone. And often, those are the stories that stay with readers the longest.
In this issue, I’m sharing what’s unfolding right now in the world of Minds In Design; new work, reflections on craft, featured pieces, free content, and the creative direction ahead. If you’ve been following the brand for a while, this issue will feel like another step deeper into the emotional and imaginative terrain that defines my work. And if this is your first issue, then welcome to the universe.
Read this one all the way through.
Because every issue of this newsletter is built with intention-but this one, perhaps more than usual, is built from the inside out.
About Minds In Design
For those encountering this newsletter for the first time, welcome.
Minds In Design is an independent creative publishing space founded by author Makitia Thompson. At its core, the brand exists for one simple reason: to bring imagination to life in ways that linger long after the final page.
From psychological novels to cosmic horror, poetry collections to quotation series, Minds In Design explores the many ways stories can reveal the hidden corners of human experience. Every project published under the M.I.D name shares a common thread-emotional depth, immersive storytelling, and the willingness to explore questions that don’t always have comfortable answers.
Stories, after all, are not just entertainment.
They are mirrors.
They reflect the fears we rarely speak aloud, the love we struggle to define, the mysteries we cannot explain, and the quiet moments that shape who we become.
Minds In Design exists to give those reflections a home.
Whether through novels, poetry, short fiction, essays, or quotation collections, the goal is always the same: to create work that readers carry with them long after the book has been closed.
If you are here because you love stories that challenge, haunt, comfort, or awaken something inside you, then you are exactly where you’re meant to be.
What’s New in the M.I.D Universe
The M.I.D universe continues to expand in ways that feel both exciting and deeply personal. This issue’s featured releases reflect two very different corners of my writing life, one rooted in dread and the unknowable, the other in emotional ache and the quiet aftermath of loss.
And somehow, both ask a similar question:
What do we do when something stays with us longer than it should?
What Removes Us
One of the strongest recent additions to the Minds In Design catalogue is my slow-burn cosmic horror novel What Removes Us.
Set in the small town of Brackenridge, the novel follows Jesse Calder, a man who begins noticing something impossible: subtle distortions in the air surrounding certain people. Then, moments later, those people disappear.
At first, Jesse assumes it’s coincidence. A trick of timing. A pattern his mind is forcing into existence because humans, unfortunately, are very talented at making things worse for themselves. But as more people vanish and the sequence becomes impossible to ignore, the truth begins to emerge.
The disappearances are not random.
They are part of something much older than Jesse can comprehend. Something patient. Something precise. Something that has been quietly removing people from Brackenridge for longer than anyone remembers.
And the pattern is almost complete.
Currently recognized as #12 in New Horror Releases in Canada on Amazon, What Removes Us is a story built for readers who love atmospheric horror, slow-burn tension, small-town mystery, and the unnerving possibility that not everything in the world wants to be understood.
Some horrors scream.
This one waits.
Yes, I Cry.
The second featured release in this issue is my newest poetry collection, Yes, I Cry.
This book lives in an entirely different emotional space than What Removes Us, but in many ways, it is just as haunting.
Yes, I Cry. is a deeply intimate collection about grief in all its forms: heartbreak, loss, sorrow, longing, emotional exhaustion, and the quiet pain that lingers long after the world expects healing to have already begun.
Tender, raw, and unflinchingly honest, these poems explore what it means to carry ache in the body, memory in the chest, and survival in trembling hands. They are written for the people mourning not only other people, but also former versions of themselves, broken hopes, abandoned futures, and the softness life did not allow them to keep.
These poems do not try to make pain beautiful.
They do not try to tie grief into something neat and inspiring for the comfort of an audience that wants healing to arrive on schedule.
They simply tell the truth about it.
For anyone who has ever loved deeply, lost quietly, and kept going anyway, Yes, I Cry. is a place to be met honestly.
And sometimes that is more valuable than being comforted cheaply.
The Mind’s Keepsake Series
Beyond novels and short fiction, another project that continues to grow is The Mind’s Keepsake quotation series.
This collection exists for readers who love language itself, the rhythm of words, the quiet power of a passage that feels like it was written for a specific moment in their life.
Each book in The Mind’s Keepsake gathers quotations and reflective passages that explore themes of love, loss, resilience, curiosity, and the strange mystery of simply being alive.
These are books meant to be revisited.
Not necessarily read once and shelved, but carried, returned to, opened at random, and lived with.
The series is currently available across major platforms including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, select libraries, and more.
For readers searching for words that resonate beyond the moment they’re read, The Mind’s Keepsake offers a quiet companion.
Writing Tip for Authors
Write the scene people usually skip
A lot of writers rush toward the obvious moments.
The confession.
The breakdown.
The betrayal.
The kiss.
The death.
The reveal.
And yes, those moments matter. But often, the scenes that make a story unforgettable are not the ones where the event happens.
They are the scenes just before it.
Or just after.
The hesitation before someone tells the truth.
The quiet kitchen after the argument.
The car ride home after the funeral.
The silence between two people who both know the relationship has changed, but neither of them is brave enough to say it yet.
Those are the scenes where emotional realism lives.
If you want your writing to feel deeper, stop only chasing the dramatic peaks. Write the uncomfortable in-between. Write the residue. Write the moment someone almost says what they mean and then doesn’t.
Readers remember what feels human.
And human beings are not made only of climaxes.
We are made of pauses.
Book of the Month
This month’s featured book remains Because I Felt Everything, my poetry collection that continues to rise with readers in Canada and beyond.
And honestly, I’m not changing it because it still deserves the spotlight.
Some books are released into the world and simply exist. Others begin to quietly find the exact readers they were meant for, slowly building their own emotional gravity over time.
Because I Felt Everything has become one of those books.
At its core, this collection is about emotional permission.
It does not ask readers to be polished. It does not demand strength, closure, or a perfect arc of healing. Instead, it offers something much more honest: space.
Across fifty poems, the collection explores heartbreak, softness, anger, memory, desire, grief, hope, and the exhausting act of trying to survive your own inner life with some amount of grace.
It is written for the people who feel too deeply in a world that often rewards numbness. For those who have stayed too long, cared too much, broken quietly, and rebuilt without applause.
There is no performance in this book.
Only truth.
And perhaps that is why it continues to resonate.
Because while the literary world is often obsessed with what sounds clever, readers are still searching for what feels real. Find it here: Because I Felt Everything
Makitia’s Writing Corner
If your story feels flat, ask what it’s afraid of
Sometimes a draft isn’t “bad.”
It’s just emotionally withholding.
One of the most useful questions you can ask when revising is this:
What is this story afraid to say?
Not what is missing structurally.
Not what would make it more marketable.
Not what would make it easier to summarize in a caption.
What truth is sitting underneath the surface of the story that you are still avoiding?
Maybe the character is too polished because you haven’t let them be ugly yet.
Maybe the ending feels weak because you’re protecting yourself from writing the one that actually hurts.
Maybe the dialogue sounds fine, but no one is really saying what they mean.
Stories flatten when writers stay emotionally safe inside them.
And I get it. Safety is tempting. Safety edits cleanly. Safety offends fewer people. Safety sounds “good.”
But it rarely sounds alive.
If a story is not working, it may not need more plot.
It may need more truth.
So go back into it and ask the hard question:
What is this story trying not to admit?
Then write from there.
That’s usually where the real work begins.
Article of the Month
This month’s featured article remains one of the most personally meaningful pieces I’ve written recently.
“Why Vulnerability Is Sacred in Black Writing” explores the emotional, cultural, and literary significance of vulnerability in Black storytelling, particularly in a world that has often expected Black writers to offer resilience without tenderness, strength without softness, and visibility without interiority.
The article argues something I believe deeply:
Vulnerability in Black writing is not weakness.
It is survival.
It is reverence.
It is witness.
To write honestly while Black is often to risk being misread, simplified, or consumed. And yet, vulnerability remains one of the most sacred creative acts available to us. It allows for nuance. It preserves emotional complexity. It refuses the flattening gaze that has too often shaped how Black stories are received.
This article is especially important for writers, readers, and creatives interested in the emotional architecture of literature, not just what stories say, but what they allow us to reclaim.
You can read the full piece here:
Free Content from Minds In Design
One of the things I’ve always wanted Minds In Design to offer is access, not just to books, but to the wider experience of storytelling itself.
That is why so much free content continues to live on my blog:
mindsndesign.blogspot.com
If you are curious about my work but not sure where to begin, the blog is one of the best places to start.
There, readers can find free stories, thoughtful articles, behind-the-scenes content, and expanded material related to my larger fictional worlds. This includes free content connected to the Where Time Can’t Exist series, allowing readers to explore the mysteries of Burrington before fully stepping into the books themselves.
The blog is designed to do a few things at once:
- Invite new readers into the worlds I’ve built
- Offer extra material for returning readers who want more
- Provide useful insight for writers and creatives
- Keep storytelling accessible and alive outside the page
There are also free short stories available for readers who simply want to experience my writing style before purchasing a collection or novel. I think that matters.
Not every reader arrives through the same doorway.
Some readers need a book cover.
Some need a recommendation.
Some need a first paragraph.
And some need a free story at 1:14 a.m. because they were trying to “just browse” and now they’re emotionally involved.
That’s the magic of accessible storytelling.
Minds In Design is committed to offering entertainment, atmosphere, and creative value in every way possible and the blog remains a major part of that commitment.
So if you haven’t explored it recently, I highly recommend spending some time there.
You might stumble into your next favorite piece by accident.
And honestly, that’s one of the best ways to find a story.
Upcoming Projects
While this issue is intentionally less centered on major series announcements and more focused on emotional and atmospheric work, there is still plenty unfolding behind the scenes.
As always, the Minds In Design catalogue continues to expand, not through random output, but through carefully chosen projects that each explore a different emotional or psychological territory.
For the coming months, readers can expect more work in the following areas:
Poetry Collections
Poetry remains one of the most intimate forms I work in, and more collections are in progress. These books continue to allow me to explore emotion in its rawest state, before it becomes plot, before it becomes character, before it is forced into neat resolution.
Quotation and Passage Collections
The Mind’s Keepsake universe continues to grow, offering readers more books designed to be returned to, reflected on, and lived with over time.
Short Stories
Short fiction remains one of the most exciting spaces within Minds In Design because it allows for experimentation, intensity, and emotional immediacy. More short-form work is on the way.
And while some of the larger novels will take longer to arrive, as they should, there is already a deep catalogue available for readers who want to immerse themselves now.
This includes:
- What Removes Us - a slow-burn cosmic horror novel rooted in disappearance, inevitability, and small-town dread
- I Only Ever Wanted You - a thriller-romance charged with emotional tension and psychological depth
- I Am The Unspoken - a novel following Madeline as she attempts to reclaim herself after trauma and confront the aftershocks of what survival really costs
My work is currently available across a wide range of platforms, including:
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Apple Books
- Kobo
- Indigo
- Bookshop.org
- Fable
- Select libraries
And more.
So while the next major novel may take time, there is no shortage of places to begin or continue, the journey in the meantime.
Connect With Me
If you’d like to stay connected with Minds In Design beyond the newsletter, you can find me across the following platforms:
Pinterest
Mindsindesign
Instagram
mindsndesign
Facebook
Makitia
YouTube
MindsinDesign
Twitter/X
mindsindesign
TikTok
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Each platform offers a slightly different doorway into the Minds In Design world, whether through updates, visuals, writing thoughts, behind-the-scenes reflections, or pieces of the creative process that don’t always make it into the books themselves.
If you’d like to stay closest to the work as it unfolds, I’d love to have you there.
Parting Words
Some stories arrive loudly.
Others settle into you slowly.
They do not demand your attention all at once. They do not announce themselves as life-changing. They simply linger. Quietly. Persistently. Until one day you realize they never really left.
That is the kind of work I have always wanted to create.
Not just stories that entertain for a moment, but stories that remain. Stories that echo. Stories that return to readers in unexpected ways, through memory, through feeling, through the strange moment when a line resurfaces long after the page has been turned.
That is what Minds In Design is built on.
A belief that stories should not disappear when they end.
They should deepen.
They should live with you.
And whether I am writing horror, poetry, psychological fiction, quotations, or something that refuses to stay neatly inside a genre at all, that remains the purpose behind every project I release.
To create something honest enough to stay.
Thank you for reading Issue #9 of The M.I.D Newsletter.
Thank you for continuing to support my work, my worlds, and the growing creative universe of Minds In Design.
And thank you, as always, for meeting these stories where they are deepest:
in the mind, in the feeling, and in the part of us that remembers what mattered.
Until next time,
Makitia Thompson
Founder, Minds In Design
#Makitia #MindsInDesign #TheMidUniverse #WhereTimeCantExist #BecauseIFeltEverything #MidStories #UntilTimeRemembers #MakitiaThompson #TheDayThatBrokeTime
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