About Keith

Keith Hayden is a digital novelist and founder of Hayden Academy Collective (HAC) Studios, where he blends fiction, music, and interactive media into immersive storytelling experiences.

He writes stories for critical thinkers with sprinkles of humor. His work explores the invisible influence of technology, folklore, and human connection across genres, from his self-styled military game tech genre to supernatural horror, techno-romance and beyond.

Digital Novelist’s Manifesto

I have never belonged. The dreaded "middle-child syndrome" has followed me like a disease my entire life.

As a kid, I was sandwiched in between my brothers, who always (in some way) needed more attention than I did.

Things changed in high school. There, insulated by our Colloqium Crew, I ran with a circle of misfits.

I can still picture that extended portable classroom with the wild field of ever-budding weeds behind it— a bastion in the South Texas heat. That was my academic haven. A source of drama and discovery, safety.

We were the brainiacs at the back of the school. A collection of different races, sexual orientations, and personalities. It was messy, imperfect, but strangely utopic before I had any real concept of the word.

Together we were insiders in our own world, yet outsiders to the rest of the school. And that made all the difference.

Back then I didn't realize how good I had it. I had no idea that would be the peak of my social life.

Because after high school, that kind of belonging slipped away. Barriers to connection rose around nearly every promising group social situation.

Sometimes it was because of race, occupation, interests, or some asshole (often self-appointed) gatekeeper who barred me from permanent entry.

Sometimes it was because of me.

Through my military career, and years of transition, I never found that kind of close-knit magic circle I enjoyed in high school again. Groups were foreign to me. Only individuals— my wife, a few close friends— felt like home.

The military gave me structure, but not belonging. I spent most of my career as a cop.

It's 50/50 whether others like you in that job.

So I made a choice: if I couldn’t find a place to belong, I would build it.

In that role, I always on the margins, enforcing order while carrying questions about the systems I served. When I left the military, I earned my certification as a math teacher. Another 50/50 job. Teaching gave me purpose, but the same sense lingered: I was still outside.

And being Black only bladed the edge.

In publishing, it means you are almost always the exception.

But even within my own community, I found myself on the margins, because I don’t write exclusively about race or blackness, though it shapes who I am.

That alone has made me an outsider twice over— outside the mainstream, and away from the expected narratives of what a Black writer should be.

So I made a choice: if I couldn’t find a place to belong, I would build it.

At first, it was survival.

When I left active duty, my entire network was still military. No roadmap. No clarity. Zero network. So I had to start from scratch.

My online work began with language learning. That taught me blogging, vlogging, and how to represent myself without the military structure I'd been used to my entire life.

Then following nearly two decades of journaling, I got serious about writing. I began writing my first book The Tower of Babbling (A Self-Study Language Resource) in 2017.

Since then school has always been in session. Coding, music, video editing, podcasting, publishing, drawing, AI; I equipped myself with the modern creator's kit.

Each skill was another tool. Each tool was another way of saying: I refuse to wait for permission. Fuck it, I'll build.

But I wasn't always going solo.

Along the way, I've squaded up with some incredibly talented and ambitious creative entrepreneurs. I've vagabonded through multiple artistic domains. If I had a passport for them, I'd need another book already.

Turns out you learn a lot viewing communities as a foreign presence. Through experience, I unlocked the "vision."

With it, I saw how every circle— education, military, publishing, tech, music— is at once different and the same.

Each has its rules, rituals, and conformity traps. There's always a 'them' to our 'us.' Always a social stratum that must be sensed more than seen.

I see that in every circle, that the greatest danger is sameness. To go along with what works. To pray to the algorithm. To repeat nostalgia. To play safe.

Sameness is the true enemy.

We live in an age that encourages conformity.

Algorithms whisper what to watch, what to read, what to think. Our minds are softened by infinite choice; pre-curated, pre-digested, fed back to us in memes and trends. It’s easier than ever to be sucked into the scroll. Harder than ever to take risks, and breakout into who we are.

But the truth is, we are also surrounded by unprecedented opportunity.

With a phone in your hand, you can teach yourself almost anything: a language, a skill, a trade, a craft. The bar has never been lower to start.

Using only mild curiosity, you can carve a path no one has walked before. You can blend worlds, like I do— pulling from code, music, writing, teaching, design— and forge a style that belongs to no single tradition, one that is uniquely you.

This is why I write.

This is why I teach.

Not for art’s sake, but to wake you up to your own power.

To rescue your curiosity.

To remind you that originality is still possible. That rebellion still matters. That conformity is not destiny.

I am a Digital Novelist.

Outsider. Builder. Teacher. Writer.

And my work is proof that you don’t have to belong to create something worth belonging to.

Have a question or looking to get in touch with me?

Send me an email at keith@hacstudios.org or call (+1) 702-758-7915 for inquiries.

Phone Hours of operation:

(All times are Pacific Standard Time)

M - F: 0500 - 0530, 0700 - 1630

Sat: 0500 - 0830

Sun: Closed

U.S. Holidays: Closed