What Naples Gave Me (Besides Jet Lag and Limoncello)

I know it has been some time since my last post, but I just returned from a much-needed two-week vacation in Naples, Italy. I had planned to schedule some posts before I left, but I simply ran out of time. A week before our departure, I received the line edits and feedback from the editor at Grendel Press for Koen: Quills from the Raven’s Nest, and I wanted to complete those before I went, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them. I’m happy to report that I made it, but just. I was still going back and forth with the editor the morning I left. Also, my wife defended her doctoral thesis that Friday and needed to celebrate that, too. It was a lot at once.

While most people return from vacation with souvenirs, photographs, and sunburns, I came back with something better: a notebook full of grimy inspiration and a burning urge to write. I still have the sunburn. Being a redhead, that was impossible to avoid.

Let me say this right up front—Naples is not like most European cities. It doesn’t cater to tourists the way Florence or Vienna does. There’s no polite veneer or curated cobblestone postcard to step into. The grime is real. The desperation is palpable. And for a writer like me, who’s building worlds shaped by shadows and survival, Naples is a goldmine unlike any city I’ve experienced in Europe. I had been there briefly before, but this was a more intimate exploration, and we did it all on foot, neck-deep in the chaos.

Jezelle—my street-smart, knife-wielding, dimension-slipping thief—feels like she could’ve grown up there. The narrow alleyways stacked with noise and drying laundry, the sidewalks crumbling into chaos, the feral energy of the old town marketplaces… it’s all deeply human, unpolished, and unrepentant. There’s a kind of brutal honesty in Naples that I’ve rarely felt elsewhere. The city doesn’t clean itself up to be loved. It dares you to look closer at the human animal, from the grandiose architecture to the overflowing refuse. And if you do, it rewards you with stories.

I spent hours walking the Quartieri Spagnoli, where scooters scream past at full throttle, and kids kick soccer balls under balconies heavy with rust and defiance. I drank espresso next to leathery old men arguing over who got cheated harder by life. I saw graffiti not as artful rebellion but as desperate declarations that there is a voice in the dark. These aren’t just aesthetic details—they’re emotional textures. And they will make their way into my future writing, especially Jezelle’s.

Her world was already one of cracked pavement and shit-filled gutters. But Naples reminded me that grit is more than grime—it’s pride. It’s refusing to vanish just because you don’t sparkle. That’s the kind of resilience I want to lace into every alley Jezelle haunts and every backroom she escapes from.

More importantly, Naples shook me out of my creative rut. I’d been grinding too long without pausing to refill the tank. This trip? It was a power-up. Not relaxing, exactly—but recharging in the way only a city with a soul can be. I wrote in cafes with chipped tables. I plotted twists while dodging broken curbs. I felt the pain of long journeys as we averaged ten miles daily, grinding our feet on cobbles and straining our legs on steps to marvelous views. And somewhere between the chaos and the cannoli, I remembered why I write these stories in the first place.

So thank you, Naples. For the dirt, the danger, the beauty you don’t apologize for. Jezelle and all my future characters, thank you, too. And soon, they’ll return the favor—knife in hand, heart on fire, and grime under their nails.

Cheers!