Hi,
I’m Joe.
Author, artist, autist.
Josiah Shields
Métis Canadian
I am currently seeking representation. Thank you for reading.
My work explores the emotional weight of memory, grief, and quiet resilience, often blending the literary with the speculative. I’m drawn to fragmented structures, lyrical prose, and stories that live between genres—where the magical and the mundane overlap. I write from the belief that even the smallest emotions deserve the biggest stage, and I’m currently working on projects that continue to explore the hidden architecture of love, loss, and becoming.
Samples Of Below Are Available upon request
GENRE
Contemporary // Drama // Magical Realism
Bound to a girl from her first breath to her last, a silent guardian spirit with a troubling past is forced to observe a woman’s life from beginning to end.
You enter the world the same way I left it; kicking and screaming and covered in blood. Later, the doctors will tell your mother you caused something called a hemorrhage and that’s why her eye color is different now – their warm green dimmed and drained until nothing but grey fog remained.
You don’t latch – you never will. To anything really. Towns, states, countries, relationships, jobs; each a constantly moving train running past your station. Bags packed to go anywhere but where you need to be.
In fact. The one thing you could never quite be rid of is the one thing you could never quite place as being there – me. You don’t know I’m here. Not really. But you have felt me, haven’t you?
In the hush before your dreams. Between the steady tick and tock of the clock, and in the way the moonlight cutting through your window bends around my shadow just ever so. Up in the corner, where the ceiling meets the wall, where the dust collects in quiet reverence – this is where you feel me most. Watching. Waiting. Not for anything in particular – just for you.
There was a tension at first. You once thought I was something to fear. Remember the way your eyes would dart to the ceiling, how you pulled the blankets over your head, squeezing your eyes shut so tight praying for the monsters to go away. But I didn’t. I will be. And there is nothing to be afraid of.
Tonight, your breath is slow, steady, the weight of sleep pressing you deep into the mattress. Your arms are curled around that stuffed rabbit, the same way you have since you were small enough to fit inside a bread basket. The world is quiet. Safe.
And I am part of that quiet.
EARLY FEEDBACK
“A love letter to the lonely. With prose as soft as moonlight, this story captures the ache of a woman who can’t seem to ‘latch’ to the world, and the silent protector who accompanies her along the way.”
GENRE
Crime // Drama // Romance
Haunted by the choice to sacrifice his relationship for a shot at fame, a struggling musician navigates the eccentric chaos of a crumbling apartment building—complete with a meth-addicted backup singer and a paranoid wannabe mobster—as he tries to harmonize his regrets with a new romance that might finally be the real thing.
It didn’t take long before I regret everything. By then it was too late. I cast a look back at the events that had landed me here in this moment and saw nothing but weeds.
Overgrown brush and dry mud cracking under the low winter sun. A life left without watering.
I picked away at my six-string which was actually a five string after the largest one had inexplicably snapped in the middle of the night a few weeks back. It had woken me from a dead sleep, its carcass coiled and swaying in the midnight breeze through a crack in my bedroom window. An odd blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. My hands were too small to play all six strings at once and suddenly the instrument seemed well within my grasp. My only regret was not ripping off a string sooner. Well, that, and not simply buying a ukulele like the wrinkly old shop owner had recommended the first go around.
The alleyway below me gleamed with fresh rain puddles and the homeless man who lived ground floor in a cardboard refrigerator box provided backup vocals in the key of Meth major. Of course he was more than just a homeless man with a meth addiction. His name was Jerry. So Jerry’s on vocals, I’m on guitar, and the domestic dispute two floors up and across the yard is hitting the percussion pretty hard tonight. I’m not sure they’re aware of their part in this particular arrangement, but they’re making do with broken bottles and a 3/4 tempo shift of slamming doors.
They weren’t the most reliable band mates, but most nights I could wrangle at least one of them up on stage with me. Once in a while we’d have a walk-on. Some Jane Doe who came here to be famous, practicing her tra-la-la’s through an open window hoping big-wig Barry would walk past her street and sign her on the spot. Those features never lasted long but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t elevate the performance. Jerry was happy to relegate to background vocals on those nights. Some nights he didn’t join at all; wrapped up in newspaper and high on his own supply.
Now big-wig Barry. He’s the real deal. I know this because he tells everyone he is including the french fry guy down at the corner. What the french fry guy is too nice to say, but I’m not, is that he puts more food in girls’ mouths in a day than Barry has in his entire life. This is the part where Barry would make a joke about – well, you know, but Barry took workplace sensitivity training last year and ever since then he keeps his lips zipped tight and his pants even tighter. And before you ask. Yes. Barry wears a big blonde wig. He is, in fact, a nobody. After a few drinks, the nicest thing you’d probably say about him is that from a distance and on an unusually hazy day he might pass for Gary Busey.
EARLY FEEDBACK
“A sharp, funny exploration of the cost of ambition – weaving between the dusty green room where a relationship ended and the rooftop ledge where a new one begins – Half Broke is a gritty, soulful ballad that looks at finding beauty in a life left unwatered.”
GENRE
Drama // Alternate History // Fiction
Set against the turbulent backdrop of pre-revolutionary Russia, two childhood best friends—one a sensitive dreamer, the other, a rising military commander—find their lifelong bond shattered by the weight of a changing empire, forcing them to choose between their shared past and a violent, ideological future.
Danson lies face up on the bed, his head and shoulder dangling over the edge. Long blonde hair grazes the carpet and his glasses slowly slide up his nose until they nestle in the crook between his eyebrows.
The world bleeds into a tapestry of blurry gossamer as blood slowly flows downstream to his head. He pushes the glasses back over his eyes and Erik slides back into focus. Seated on the floor with his back against the wall, he flips through a magazine with a half naked woman on the cover.
“What page are you on?”
Erik glances up over the top of the magazine at his brother whose face is starting to resemble a cherry tomato with a vision problem.
“If you hang like that much longer your head will pop like a balloon.”
“No it won’t.” Danson grunts and tries to readjust. “What page are you on?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Wait till you see page thirty-five.”
Erik stares up at him again. Danson shrugs his lips at him. Eric flicks forward a few pages and scrunches his face.
“There’s no pictures.”
“It’s an article. You should read it, it’s good.”
Erik grabs a pillow beside him and chucks it at Danson’s face.
“Nobody buys these for the articles.”
The pillow crumples to the floor leaving behind a mess of hair and crooked glasses that Danson doesn’t bother fixing.
“Maybe if I wrote them people would.”
“Would you turn around. You’re literally going to burst.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“No. I just know Dad is going to make me clean it up when you do.”
Danson smiles. “I think you’re worried.”
Erik smacks him across the forehead with the magazine and Danson scowls at him.
“Ow! What are you going to do when he finds out you took his magazine.”
“Same thing you’re going to do when Dad finds out you’re sneaking out tonight to go to another rally.”
“If you tell him I’ll kill you.”
Erik leans forward and crouches in front of Danson.
“Fat chance. I don’t even think you could stand up right now tomato boy.”
Danson grunts and tries to sit up but Erik presses a finger into his forehead and laughs as he collapses back into the bed.
“Get off me.”
“It’s a shame this is how they’ll find you.”
Danson swipes out with his hands and connects with Erik’s thigh. He squeezes down, pinching the skin and Erik yelps, releasing him. Danson rolls up onto the bed and immediately strikes a defensive pose. Erik stares at him in shock.
“You pinched me?”
“It worked didn’t it.”
“You’re such a girl!”
Erik dives at him. He wrestles Danson until he’s straddling him, his knees pinning each of Danson’s arms to the bed. He begins lightly slapping him on the cheek. Danson squirms and tries to buck Erik off but he’s too heavy.
“What do you say?”
Danson thrashes again but Erik just laughs.
“You’ll never be able to beat me. You’re too small.”
He was right. Erik had developed more in the last few years than Danson had; broad shoulders and thick ropes for arms. He was probably fifteen pounds heavier than Danson, all of which was muscle. A guttural sound comes from the back of Erik’s throat.
“Oh no.”
A string of spit slowly rappels from Erik’s mouth towards a bug eyed Danson. He bucks again sending the spit into a tail spin towards his glasses.
“Get OFF!”
One last heave and Danson throws Erik back tumbling over the bed onto the floor. He lands with a sharp crack and a heavy thump that garners a concerned “boys?” from Mom downstairs.
“We’re fine Mom!” Danson yells back then looks to the end of the bed. “You’re fine, right?”
No response. Danson crawls to the foot of the bed where Erik is laying. His chest rises and falls in shallow breaths. His lips hang loosely open, air silently coming and going. Danson finds himself tracing the outline of his face with his eyes. A jaw that had hardened in the last few months. Soft cheeks that sloped down into a ridged nose. Danson reaches back for a pillow making sure not to take his eyes off his brother.
“Erik?”
He waits a few more seconds without a response then tosses the pillow onto his brother’s gut. His eyes flutter open and roll over to Danson with a smirk.
“I’m fine.”
“I know. I knew that.”
“Were you worried about me?”
“No.”
Erik smiles. “I think you were worried.”
EARLY FEEDBACK
“Devastatingly intimate...
A beautiful, heartbreaking portrait of two souls drifting apart.”
GENRE
Fantasy // Adventure // Crime // Romance
After her father vanishes and her wings are brutally clipped by a corrupt celestial regime, a rebellious half-human angel plummets into the gritty underworld of 1980s New York City, where she must partner with a terminally ill butcher to expose a cosmic conspiracy threatening the balance between life and death.
Rose entered her house heavier than when she had left it that morning. The calm of her home now felt quiet and barren and the sun-filled sky spot lit regrets from the night before. Crumpled napkins and sticky rims strewn about. The perpetually unfinished game of chess her and her father always had on the go on the table in front of the stone hearth. Rose wondered if they’d ever get to finish this one. It was her move with the black pieces.
“Do you know what the most powerful piece on the entire board is?” he’d asked a young Rose during one of their first games together. Rose had scoffed, muttered ‘the queen, of course’, even punctuating it with an eye roll for good measure. Her Father shrugged his lips and nodded his head.
“Very good.”
He leaned across the board, his hands clasped shut.
“But there’s one piece that you, and almost everyone else forgets.”
Rose smiled and lifted her eyebrows. Her dad had a flair for drama that was not lost on her. His fingers unfurled to reveal: “The pawn?” Rose’s deflated tone said everything. He jerked back his hand in feigned indignation.
“You judge so quickly!”
His free hand gestured down at the board.
“A knight can jump, yes, but it will always be a knight. We know who he is. But a pawn,” he hovered the pawn over the board in the palm of his hand. “The pawn can become anything it needs to be in order to win.”
He closed his fist and shook it at Rose.
“Blow.”
Rose leaned in and obliged. Her Father wiggled his free hand over top of his fist.
“A rook perhaps?”
He unfurled his fingers once again and the pawn was gone. In its place stood a rook. Rose’s face lit up.
“How about a bishop?”
In a flash the rook had turned to a bishop.
“Or yes, even the powerful queen.”
This time, when he opened his hand, there was no queen. No rook, no bishop, no knight. Simply a black pawn.
“Can you see her?”
Rose took the piece from his flat palm and rolled it around in her tiny hands.
“I can see them all.”
Her father smiled the way only a father can when his kid makes a breakthrough.
“In a world full of queens my sweet angel, be the pawn. They’ll never see you coming.” He tousled her hair. “Oh, and before I forget.”
He glanced down at the board for a moment, pondered, then moved one of his pawns up a square.
“Check mate.”
“Dad!”
He laughed uproariously, his head back and pulled her in tightly for a bear hug.
“Keep practicing honey. It’ll be a few moons before you take down your old man.”
Hours later, while he slept in his chair, Rose moved queen and pawn by firelight, careful to set the pieces down each move so as not to wake him. What she didn’t know, and what she couldn’t see, was a half-squinted eye watching her with pride. He threw in a loud snore for good measure ever so often, especially when she was about to make a bad move.
Even from his slumber he guided her.
EARLY FEEDBACK
“Heartbreaking and hilarious. The dynamic between Rose, a fallen angel navigating a foreign world, and Leonard, a butcher hiding a tragic secret, is the emotional anchor of this high-stakes thriller. A story about finding humanity in the most unlikely of souls.”