The map-maker stayed in the territory.
The order runs backwards. The paint comes first, before there are words for any of it. What holds on the canvas becomes a field guide. What will not hold becomes a novel. The studio is where the systems get felt before they get named.
Lee Powell writes about the systems people find themselves inside before they can see them. He is the author of the field guides Stop Feeding the System and ManOS, and the novel LOADED: An Archive. His second novel, The Witness Layer, is in progress, with The God Protocol and DAY NINE following.
Before returning to books, he built software used by writers worldwide, including Scrivener and Scapple for Windows, and delivered systems inside banks, exchanges and government agencies. He holds an MSc in Software Engineering from the University of Oxford.
Alongside the writing, Powell paints. The canvases work the same seam as the books: a structure built, buried under paint, then cut back until it shows through. Originals and a small number of prints sit in private collections in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and are available by inquiry. See the work →
He lives in Melbourne. He publishes under ManOS Group Pty Ltd.
The nonfiction is written from inside the rooms it maps. The fiction is where he goes to get out of them. The paintings are what he found there.