I’m sitting in my Brooklyn apartment, watching the remaining snow drip off the buildings. It’s a good metaphor for an in-between state. For transitions. Going back over my year-end post from last year, I described 2023 as a rollercoaster. There was definitely some of ups and downs in 2024, but I think this year was more about waiting. Waiting to see if a major expansion of a short story to a novella would work as I rewrote it one chapter at a time. Waiting to see if my engineering company would right itself and stabilize after a year of extreme uncertainty. Waiting to see how the US election would shake out.
I don’t want to talk about the election. I’m cleaning up my novella as we speak and my company ended up collapsing in the beginning of November, leaving me unemployed for the first time in my career. Which is an uncomfortable feeling, but I have been writing more than ever, and that has been a wonderful gift.
Not too many of my stories came out this year, but that’s how publishing shakes out sometimes. (By comparison 2025 is shaping up to be a windfall.) But in terms of writing, it was a good year. I taught some online classes for Clarion West, was on some fun panels at conventions, and staffed at the Alpha’s Workshop for Young Writers over the summer. I wrote a guest editorial for Asimov’s and for the first time, a story of mine was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award!
Anyway, these are the stories that were published this year and I would love if you gave them a read!
The Stories
- A Black Spot Among the Chaos – Beneath Ceaseless Skies – February 2024
If it were not for the stowaway, the soul retrieval would have been as easy as dreaming. Mika would go to her grave swearing this. (“Stealing, not retrieval,” Burt countered. “Let’s call it what it is.”)
– Short story, 6,800 words
- Between Home and a House on Fire – Reactor – May 2024
There’s no one else on this unassuming highway, level for miles, hiding nothing among the wide flat boulders and bent grassland. But you know emptiness is sometimes an illusion, especially on this lick of road. Your knuckles are white on the steering wheel as you wait. For God knows what.
-Short story, 4,100 words
Upcoming in 2025
I have a growing list of works and events coming out or occurring in 2025. There’s a few things where the contracts have been signed, but I can’t announce them yet. Here’s what I can share:
- Essay: Accessibility Toolkit For When Things Go Wrong – Uncanny Magazine, January 2025
- Novelette: View Window – Strange Horizons – Summer 2025
- Online Class: How to Get Unstuck with A. T. Greenblatt – Clarion West Online – April 5th, 2025 (open to enrollment now!)
If you’re still here, at the end of this post, thank you! I hope you have a wonderful New Years and, as always, thank you for reading!
Curiosity Sometimes Pays Off 
Happy New Year Aliza!
Thanks, Brian! Happy new year to you too!