Author · Technologist · Publisher
also known as Ish
Momma, auntie, author, career technologist, and constant seeker of knowledge in all forms. I am passionate about equity, inclusion, sustainability and the ethical and effective use of AI.
About Ish
I write both fiction and non-fiction — which, if you know me at all, makes complete sense. My brain doesn't recognize boundaries between the imaginative and the analytical. I'm as likely to be deep in Elizabethan England as I am in an agentic AI workflow, and I genuinely love both places.
My fiction lives in the realm of historical fantasy — lush, layered, and steeped in the esoteric. My non-fiction exists to do something I care deeply about: help real people build real fluency with technology that's changing faster than most curricula can keep up.
When I'm not writing, I'm consulting, volutneering, publishing, designing books, or running Black Oak Lane LLC — a technology and publishing services firm with two divisions: Black Oak Lane Labs (enterprise AI strategy) and Black Oak Lane Press (publisher and professional book design).
I work hard, play hard, and believe that if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
"I find connection in the circle of my family and friends and thrive on quietly spreading ideas and validation wherever I go."
Fiction
I write the kinds of stories I want to find on the shelf — atmospheric, intellectually hungry, and alive with the strangeness that history keeps trying to explain away.
Fiction at the intersection of human work and artificial intelligence
The Blended Edge is where most of us actually live now — in the uncertain, fascinating space where human judgment meets AI capability. These novels explore that territory not as dystopia or utopia, but as the complicated, often funny, sometimes profound reality it is.
When a mid-sized firm deploys AI to reduce headcount, the people who remain discover a harder problem than the one they solved: expertise doesn't just live in job descriptions. This business novel follows the decisions - and the costs - that follow when automation outpaces the organization's ability to understand what it has replaced.
When the AI systems you didn't design end up in scope for a compliance audit you weren't prepared for, the question stops being whether the controls work. It becomes whether you can prove it. This business novel follows an EVP of IT and Security through the gap between a system that functions and a system that can be attested to — and what it costs to close it.
When a one-woman publishing house nearly loses an author to a deadline that fell through the cracks, the problem isn't the tools. The tools are fine. The problem is that the business has never been written down. This business novel follows an independent press owner through the work of making her operation legible — to herself, and to the AI that's been waiting for her to do exactly that.
Esoteric fiction set in Elizabethan England · Alchemical themes
Elizabethan England was a world of shadow and spectacle — where the court glittered and the alchemist's furnace burned through the night. The Roseglass Circle follows the threads of power, transformation, and secret knowledge woven through an era that wanted to believe magic and reason could coexist. Rich in period detail and esoteric lore, this is historical fantasy that takes its history seriously.
Authored by my mother · Produced by Ish Lane
Some books aren't published for the general public — they're for the people who matter most. The Cassandra Bush is my mother's book, produced as a hardcover gift for Mother's Day 2026. A labor of love, in every sense of the word.
But it's really good and you should read it.
Non-Fiction
My non-fiction is written for people who are genuinely trying to figure things out — not looking for hype, not looking for a vendor pitch. Just real talk about how knowledge workers actually learn to work with AI.
A curriculum series for knowledge workers
The conversation that should have happened from the start — honest, practical, and built for people who are ready to build real fluency instead of performing it. Each book in this series addresses a specific gap between what organizations expect and what workers were actually taught.
Book Production
Writing is one thing. Getting a book into the world — beautifully, professionally, and correctly — is another discipline entirely. I do both.
Black Oak Lane Press
As publisher and lead designer for Black Oak Lane Press and its imprints, I handle the full production pipeline — from manuscript to print-ready files — for every title across Compassionate Care Press, Verano Press, and Acorn Hollow Press.
Author Services
Through Black Oak Lane Press's author services division, I work with independent authors and small presses who need professional interior layout and production work — the kind that holds up anywhere, in print or digital.
Running Wild Press is an independent publisher built on craft and genuine editorial conviction — the kind of house worth working with. I handle interior layout and production for their titles, bringing the same care to every page that I bring to my own books.