Where the latest publishing news can be found.
I’m happy to announce my first horror story is now live in Nightmare Magazine! It’s called “The Family in the Adit“. I’ve never written horror successfully before and this was an experiment in stretching my abilities as a writer. I’m quite pleased with the result. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the history or the process of creating this story, because I do that here.
The song I used as a soundtrack for this story was “Tell Mama” by The Civil Wars.
Hope you enjoy the story!
I’m excited to announce that my story “RE: Bubble 476” is now available to read in the March/April issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Unlike nearly all my fiction publications, I can’t provide a link to the story because it’s in print. Like arrived-in-my-mailbox in print. Like it’s a physical thing I can hold and I have the pictures to prove it!
Which means, if you’d like to read it, you’ll need a copy for yourself.
This is the first time I’ve had a story published in one of the Big Three (Analog, Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction), so that’s a good feeling. I’m not going to talk here about my process or the story behind the story because I did an author interview post on Asimov’s blog. (ETA: Interview is now live!)
The song I used as a soundtrack for this story was There is a House by The Holy.
As always, I wouldn’t be able to publish my stories in this fashion without magazines like Asimov’s. So, if you can, please consider buying this issue or a subscription. It helps us all continue to tell stories.
Hello friends and friendly readers! I’m happy to share that I have a new story available in Lightspeed Magazine! It’s called “The Memory of a Memory is a Spirit” which is definitely my most poetic title to date. I’m not going to talk about my process and the journey of this story too much in this post because there’s an author interview where I do just that.
I will say instead that I’m super excited to have a story published in Lightspeed Magazine. It was one of the first magazines I read when I started writing eleven years ago and one of the first places I submitted a story to. It’s been on my list of markets I’d like to be published in for a very long time.
My writing soundtrack for this story was two songs by the band Daughter. The first is a cover of the song Poke by Frightened Rabbit and the other song is called Lifeforms. So dark and broody and I love it.
Hope you enjoy the story!
Oh man, what a year. It feels like it’s been both a month long and stretching out for centuries. Still, I can’t complain too much, I’ve been lucky. And I know I’ve said this every year for the last few years, but this has truly been an amazing year for my writing career. I got stories accepted by magazines that I’ve been trying to break into for a decade. I finished some very difficult pieces and did some tie-in writing for Magic the Gathering. Also, I won a Nebula!
So, yeah, no complaints.
I had two stories come out this year – a novelette and short story. I’d be thrilled if you checked them out. They both have audio versions too.
“Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super”
“One Time, A Reluctant Traveler”
That’s what I got this year! But I’m always looking for recommendations. What have you read this year that you’ve enjoyed?
Hello all! I’m excited to announce that I have a new story out. It’s called “One Time, A Reluctant Traveler” published in Clarkesworld Magazine!
This is a story I wrote during the pandemic and consequently, it was a difficult story to write. Partly because global catastrophes tend to atrophy your creativity. Partly because it’s a story about depression and the cyclical and generational nature of it.
But it also includes things which I had so much fun writing, like a sarcastic park ranger robot and stories within stories. It’s been years since I’ve ridden a bike outside, but I had a great time reimagining what that would feel like in a strange landscape.
In terms of music, a weird thing has been happening to me lately. When I write, I usually find one or two songs that act as a soundtrack to the story, then I listen to them on repeat. That hasn’t been the case lately. Instead I’ve been listening to playlists or entire albums. But I think of all the songs I listened to while writing this, Jordan Klassen’s Virtuous Circle and Surprised/Not Surprised are the two songs I associate most with this piece.
As always, I hope you enjoy the story. And more importantly, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.
So, this happened. “Give The Family My Love” published in Clarkesworld Magazine won the Nebula award for Best Short Story last night. Honestly, I’m still completely stunned and I would love to say something profound here, but I’m really, really tired tonight.
So I figured I’ll transcribed my acceptance speech here instead
But before I do that, if you like to see the awards ceremony you can watch it in its entirety here. If you only want to see the short story category and my speech, skip to the 34:30 minute mark.
Here’s the speech:
Um, so, wow. This is a shock and surprise. Thank you all so, so much for this amazing honor. It is truly a dream come true. Writing is a lonely process, but nothing is created alone.
So, I’d like to thank Neil Clarke for taking a chance on this story and to Kate Baker for her amazing narration. Thank you to my fabulous critique group who saw a half finished draft of this story several years ago and understood what I was trying to do.
Thank you to all my friends, online and in-person, who have been my consistent support network. And thank you to my family who have always been supportive and encouraging through the ups and downs in my career. Who don’t mind that I disappear for hours on the weekends to write. I love you very much.
Finally, thank you to all the readers who believed in this story. These are truly terrifying times where tomorrow is not necessarily guaranteed. But being human means we’re complicated creatures with complicated emotions and opposable thumbs. Which means we can hold our fear and our dread in one hand and our hope in the other.
And I hope you hold tight to that hope, that desire to make good art and make the world a bit better, even when things look bleak.
Especially when things look bleak.
Thank you so much.
Here’s a list of all the winners.
Things have been quiet on this blog for a while, but then again, life has been fairly quiet since I started quarantining mid-March. I’ve been writing. Slowly. But I’ve also been taking time to take care of myself. (Lots of walks, yoga, good cooking, and books.)
Which is all to say, that I do have some news to share today. I’m excited to say I have a story in the Weird Dream Society anthology! What’s particularly exciting about this project is that it’s a charity anthology benefiting RAICES. And it’s available for pre-order right now. It contains many, many amazing writers and benefits a fantastic organization. It also has a reprint of my story “They Said the Desert” with was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies!
That’s it for now. I hope you are all safe and healthy and finding some time to do the things you love.
I’m beyond excited to announce that my short story “Give the Family My Love“, which was originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine, is a finalist for the 2019 Nebula Award!
If you’re wondering what the Nebula Awards are, they’re like the Oscars for science fiction and fantasy writers. Members of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) nominate works in several categories and vote on the final ballot. There’s an awards ceremony and everything. Here’s the full list of nominees.
The winners will be announced on May 30th, 2020.
I’m so honored to have this story listed among such good writers and their amazing work.
This is a first for me. I usually prefer to spend my writing time working on fiction, but for Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Issue, I made an exception. Today, I’m pleased to say I have an essay in this issue called “How to Send Your Disabled Protagonist on an Adventure in 7 Easy Steps.”
This is something I’ve been thinking about for the last few years and have been trying to incorporate into my own fiction more often. The essay was surprisingly fun to write, because unlike the essays I wrote for school, now I could be sarcastic.
I hope you like it and find it useful. And as always, if you enjoy the content that Uncanny Magazine puts out, please consider supporting them.
2019, so far, has been a good year for me in terms of writing. Like an extremely good year. Like, I haven’t been doing a proper job of talking about which stories have come out, which ones have audio links, what’s been reprinted, etc.
So, this is a post to recap what’s out and what’s coming out soon!
Online Publications:
Stories in Anthologies:
Podcasted Stories:
Seriously though, I’m still stunned by this list.
Happy reading!
Curiosity Sometimes Pays Off 