H.L. Delaney 
Writer & Independent Publisher

I am a Modoc/Klamath writer, storyteller, and independent publisher based in the Pacific Northwest. My work lives at the seam between history and myth — in the smoke of old fires, in the memory of the land, and in the voices of those who refused to disappear. I write from the Basin and for the Basin, drawing on the Modoc homelands of Northern California and the stories carried forward through generations.

My central project, The Renegades, is a long-form narrative archive of stories, poems, chapbooks, and visual maps that explore survivance, resistance, and cultural memory through mythic retelling. What began as Captain Jack & The Original Renegades has expanded into a wider constellation of interconnected works that braid past and present, ancestral history and contemporary identity.

Alongside this, I write The Book of Spirals, an ongoing myth series rooted in land-based storytelling. Each spiral reimagines cosmology, memory, and the responsibilities we inherit from the places that shape us. Together, the spirals form a companion universe to The Renegades — two intertwined bodies of work exploring how story transmits culture.

My writing has been recognized in national contests, including the 2025 Princemere Poetry Prize (Finalist) for The Ballad of Charlie Fiester, the 2025 Hedge Apple Fiction Prize, and a History Through Fiction Longlist selection. These acknowledgments reflect the growing reach of work that is, at its core, community-centered and land-rooted.

When I’m not writing, I’m with my three sons — out on the land, listening for the stories that still echo there.

This site is an open fire: a place to gather, to remember, and to keep our stories alive.