What is Lit Escalates?

Lit Escalates (formerly Shit Escalates) began as a Covid-era collaboration between author Pierce Brown and visual artist Joel Daniel Phillips. We set out to create high quality, collectible merchandise for fans of the Red Rising book series. Howlers worldwide surprised and delighted us with their voracious response, and we quickly realized that unless a book is made into a movie or a TV show, there is often very little opportunity for fans to see their favorite book world come to life in a physical way.

So we decided to change that...

What do we do?

We collaborate with your favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy authors to bring their worlds to life. We release limited edition drops featuring collectible items, and we build permanent merchandise lines that include t-shirts, hats, stickers, mugs and more.

Who do we work with?

Currently: Pierce Brown, Joe Abercrombie and V.E. Schwab.

Are you an author or do you have someone in mind you'd love to see us collaborate with? Shoot us an email at shop@lit-escalates.com!

Our story:

We started this company entirely by accident. In early 2020, as the pandemic was just starting to screw up just about everything, we launched a spur-of-the-moment fundraiser selling bandanas to help out a few of Joel’s neighbor Tulsans who were struggling to stay afloat when things went into lockdown. We thought maybe we could sell a handful of screen printed bandanas. Then the Howlers came in like the gorydamn champs that you are and purchased $30,000 dollars worth of merch in the first 48 hours, which not only helped some folks with much needed work, but also resulted in a $10,000 donation to United Way. 

After that delightful and chaotic beginning we realized we needed to turn this into something official, and so Shit Escalates was born. Fast forward a few years and a (slight) name change, and we are so gratified for your continued excitement and support for all of the crazy things we cook up. In that time we’ve sent over 45,000 packages to fans in 35 different countries. We have worked with incredible artists from all over the land and are in the midst of planning approximately 1 million more absurd, amazing and unique collaborations.

Thanks for everything,

-Pierce, Joel, V.E. and Joe.