Before drafting his forthcoming novel, T.E. Bean composed music for PlayStation and Xbox games, remixed pop stars, produced and co-hosted a popular FM radio program, and wrote advertising copy for global brands.

When he’s not chasing archaeological wonders and ancient riddles across far-flung corners of the planet, he’s at his desk overlooking Fort York, Toronto, crafting tales in which classical wisdom tangles with contemporary theoretical science.

Infinite Night Eyes, his debut novel, is a speculative mystery that asks: could a pre-Ice Age civilization have possessed technology surpassing our present understanding of physics? Coming autumn 2026 from Black Spring Press, distributed via Simon & Schuster.

INTERVIEW

MG: What got you into poetry?

TE: I came to poetry through songwriting. As a music-obsessed teenager, I stumbled across a battered copy of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience at a yard sale. I still have it. Inside the cover, scrawled in pencil, is “50¢.” Best investment I ever made. That little paperback has followed me everywhere since, and I return to it often. Blake taught me that language can be both music and meaning at once. I’ve been chasing that alchemy ever since.

MG: Tell us about "Alphabeticalcium." What makes it unique?

TE: Alphabeticalcium is me wrestling with the idea that all matter—blades of grass, entire galaxies—shares the same language, the same neutrality. The poem starts cosmic and narrows to human scale: we like to believe we’re singular, but in truth we’re just rearrangements of the same ol’ twenty-six letters. Knowing our bones are built from stardust is both humbling and unnerving. If in our marrow we carry the weight of worlds, then perhaps even ordinary choices stretch boundlessly, far beyond what we can imagine.

MG: Who is your favourite poet?

TE: Blake is my eternal touchstone. Saskatchewan-born poet Lorna Crozier, too. Her book Inventing the Hawk taught me that beauty can arrive in muddy boots and still outclass you. But more recently, the poet who’s taken residence in my mind is Arthur H. Manners, a British writer with a background in space physics and data science. His poem Looking Back, recently published in Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, is one of those rare pieces that distills an entire worldview into a few stanzas. By bridging deep time and fleeting human ingenuity, Manners manages to say in a few lines what I’ve spent my entire life trying to find words for.

MG: You also write fiction. Tell us about your debut novel.

Infinite Night Eyes is literary sci-fi inspired by archaeology, philosophy, and physics. I’m fascinated by evidence of advanced, applied science in the ancient world. In my novel, UCLA mathematician Kat Watburn attends a sound bath meditation in Joshua Tree and is struck by visions of near-future catastrophe: a geomagnetic storm capable of collapsing the global power grid. The next day, her estranged father calls from Peru with news of his own disturbing experience and a discovery—advanced equations carved into prehistoric stone. United by a mysterious, otherworldly messenger, father and daughter embark on a globe-spanning, puzzle-driven adventure through archaeological ruins in pursuit of a centuries-old algorithm that may be humanity’s only hope.

MG: What is your poetry writing process? How is it different from your fiction writing process?

TE: With both, I essentially practice method acting. I wake up and chug strong coffee, slide into character, and stay there until the writing’s done. It makes me lousy daytime company, but it works. The real difference is perspective. In fiction I often inhabit female voices; in poetry, I gravitate toward male, exploring softness and vulnerability, shaking loose the clichés of assumed “masculine” expression. Both forms share DNA, but fiction requires poetry to hide inside the prose, while poetry lets me stretch unused muscles and just… fly.

MG: Where can people find you online?  

TE: Instagram is home base @tebeanwrites. I’m also on Bluesky and Threads. In mid-2026, to coincide with the promotional run-up to my novel release, I’ll be launching a website. The design is ambitious; I want it to be more than a link tree. The plan is to make my site an extension of the book itself: a place for archaeological context, puzzles, and extra layers of narrative that deepen the reading experience.

Read "Alphabeticalcium" by T.E. Bean