NeuroDivine

A Word from North

The wind was after rising something fierce that evening, howling across the valley like a creature that had lost its way. I stood by the hearth, watching the sparks fly up the chimney, and I thought to myself: No one should be out in that. I looked at the others—Frost with his quiet eyes, Snow already after starting a story to drown out the gale, and Ice, steady as a rock by the door. I knew then that the fire wasn’t just for us. It never was.

I walked to the window and traced the frost on the glass. “There’ll be someone coming,” I said, not because I saw them, but because the cold was too bitter for them not to be looking for a light. “And when they get here, sure, we’ll not be asking for their name or their business. We’ll just be after pulling out the chair.”

Because that’s the thing about the Lounge—it doesn’t wait for you to be worthy of the warmth. It just waits for you to be cold enough to need it.

Sure, haven’t we all felt it? That long, quiet stretch of winter where the world feels a bit too sharp around the edges.

Over the last while on NeuroDivine, I’ve been after sharing a few glimpses of a place that knows that feeling well. We’ve seen the blue door appear, and we’ve met a few of those who found their way inside when the “inner weather” grew a bit too cold.

The Heart of The Icicle Lounge

The inspiration for The Icicle Lounge grew from a playful meditation on the “Fit Lads of Winter”—figures who stride through frost with open collars and visible breath, turning the cold into a mere backdrop for their vitality. While the initial spark was an aesthetic admiration of athletic grace and Winter Olympic grit, a deeper narrative emerged in the simple, sacred gesture of a removed glove.

This small act of exposure—choosing to feel the chill in order to offer a bare hand—transformed the observer from a distant watcher into a participant. It shifted the story from the longing of “just watching” to the courage of belonging, reflecting the neurodivergent and queer experience of navigating social spaces that can often feel like beautiful, yet freezing, terrain.

As the concept evolved into a 1950s-style fantasy poster, The Icicle Lounge became a tribute to the coded sanctuaries of the past. It reimagines the mid-century queer bar not just as a hidden room, but as a luminous “myth of resistance” where warmth is intentional rather than accidental. The Lounge exists as a fictional haven where the “watcher at the edge of the hill” is finally invited inside, proving that even in the deepest frost, community is the flame that refuses to be dimmed.

Moving and Staying: The Two Volumes

Coming to you in March 2026 and May 2026, these collections explore the myth and the reality of a sanctuary that knows our names before we even speak them.

Book 1: The Icicle Lounge

(Coming March 2026)

This volume brings us back to the very beginning—the legend of how the warmth first learned to move. It follows the Lounge as it makes its way through the bogs of Kildare and up the wild Donegal coast. If you’ve enjoyed the stories I’ve shared here recently, this is where you’ll find the rest of that journey.

• The Legend of the Four Lads: Meet North, Frost, Snow, and Ice—the four who refused to let the winter have the last word and built a room that breathes.
• The Fifth Seat: The chair that’s always pulled out, just waiting for the next soul to arrive.

Book 2: Where the Warmth Learned to Stay

(Coming May 2026)

While the first book is about the miracle of the door appearing, the second is about the “Knot of Grace” that keeps us together. It’s about the nurse on the night shift and the priest in the quiet lane—the people who learn how to carry the Lounge’s warmth within them long after they’ve stepped back out into the street.

• The Prayer in Four Tongues: A rising written by the lads in Latin, Irish, English, and Ulster-Scots, bound together in the frost.

The Look of the Lounge

As many of you know, the stories come with a set of illustrations that are a true collaboration between my own words and machine imagination. These are detailed pencil drawings in colour, styled after the coded charm of 1950s fantasy posters. They’re a way of seeing the stories from another angle, catching the shimmer of the frost and the amber of the lamps.

Come in from the Cold

I believe storytelling is a way of keeping the fire lit for one another. Many of us are after standing outside doors where we weren’t sure of the welcome, but in the Lounge, the door is always on the latch.

I’m looking forward to sharing the full books with you very soon. Until then, sure, keep an eye on the frost—you never know where the blue door might be after appearing next.

Stay in the Warmth

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For the full professional bibliography and publication details, head over to MichaelMcFarlandCampbell.org.