“He tells me that I need to get in the car, quick, before Justin finds me. I keep forgetting about the Bieber situation. I slide into the back seat and the car is so clean that I feel like if I were to throw up right now, it would just slide out of the door like oil.”

In Bad Habit: A Collection of Short Stories, Cortez shares five tales that take an in-depth look into the ramifications of an indifferent approach to life. Bloody Mary’s Bubblegum tells the story of a magician who befriends a modern-day Mary Magdalene and gets thrown into the chaos of her lifestyle. In The Unicorn Princess of Orion’s Belt, we watch the protagonist fall into a mystical cult that ends up being centred around a make-believe Unicorn. And in book highlight Justin Bieber is a Little Bitch, Cortez tells the (potentially untrue) story of a time where Justin Bieber was trying to kill him.

Focusing thematically on religion, discomfort and obsessive behaviours, Cortez incorporates humour and poetic writing to create a collection that is quite tongue-in-cheek with it’s storytelling. Inspired by alternative fiction writers, such as Hanif Kureishi, Jamie Marina Lau and Lucia Berlin, Bad Habit is Cortez’s first formal publication and was released in conjunction with his debut album of the same title.