Tag: stories

Notebook that has "Year End Review" written on it. Pen is leaning on the notebook and a full coffee mug besides it. On a dark wood background

2025 Year End Eligibility Post

On By A. T. GreenblattIn General Ramblings1 Comment

What a difficult year. We’ll leave it at that.

But I wrote a TON and I am incredibly proud of what was published this year and what is going to come out next year. (Some of which I can’t announce yet.)

Here’s what came out this year.

The Short Stories

In the Shells of Broken Things – Clarkesworld Magazine – June 2025

“Get your hands dirty. The motto of anyone who grew up in the Evergreen Dome, which included my grandparents, my parents, my great aunts and uncles, and all of their friends. When I was a teen, I threatened to have those words tattooed over the backs of my hands and never leave the house. A hollow threat—I’d always been restless.”

Cover of June 2025 Issue of Clarkesworld Magazine
– Short Story -7,000 words

Adventures on the Omega Train at Night – Sunday Morning Transport – April 2025

“Plenty of people navigate the night trains regularly—but you need to have the right constitution for it, a good head on your shoulders, and a firm internal compass to not get lost for days or weeks. Or sometimes, longer.“

– Short Story – 3,600 words

The Wanting – Night & Day Anthology edited by Ellen Datlow – September, 2025

“There was plenty of debris in the road, trash, broken glass everywhere, and other undefinable objects littered about, some of them stretched beyond recognition like old taffy. Shapeless lumps of people twitched under blankets on the sidewalks.“

– Short Story – 2,800 words

The Novelette

View Window – Strange Horizons – June 2025

“In the driftwood and flotsam of his once carefully assembled life, Oliver decided to move in the city. Which was to say, leave his apartment.“

Strange Horizons kickstarter banner. Face in a black background with white stripes over tops
– Novelette – 9,900 words

The Essay

Accessibility Toolkit for When Things Go Wrong – Uncanny Magazine – January 2025

“I’m writing this essay because in recent years, I’ve noticed a gap between accessibility plans and what happens when that plan doesn’t play out as expected.“

Cover of Uncanny Magazine Issue 62
– Essay – 1,600 words

If you’re still here, at the end of this post, thank you! I hope your end of 2025 is full of good things and good company.

May 2026 treat you well.

Cover of Uncanny Magazine Issue 62

New Essay + An Anthology Announcement

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

So, I mentioned in my year end wrap up in December that 2025 was shaping up to be an exciting publication year. I also said that there were a few things I couldn’t announce publicly yet.

Well, I can’t announce everything, but I’m happy to share that my essay “Accessibility Toolkit for When Things Go Wrong” is now live over at Uncanny Magazine! It’s about what to do when an accessibility plan for an event doesn’t work as you expect. It pulls from examples that I’ve seen or heard about over the years.

The second piece of news – which I’m thrilled about – is that I’m going to have a story in an Ellen Datlow’s Night & Day anthology! The anthology is model after the old Ace double features were one half of the book would have one novel and then if you flip and rotate the book 180 degrees, there would be another. My story, “The Wanting”, will be in the “Day” half and the company it keeps in this entire anthology is pretty amazing. It will be hitting shelves on September 2nd, 2025!

More news coming soon (I think), but I’ll leave you with this short story recommendation in the meantime: “They Bought a House” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu over at Nightmare Magazine.

Award Eligibility Post 2024 and Looking Forward

On By A. T. GreenblattIn General Ramblings2 Comments

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

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

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!

New Story “Between Home and a House on Fire”

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

Technically, this came out yesterday, but yesterday I was busy. Fortunately, the story hasn’t changed since then.

Thrilled to share that “Between Home and a House on Fire” is now published on Reactor (formally Tor.com

This is a special one to me. It’s about the strange complexity of emotions you have as look back at your past self. It was originally based off a failed Choose Your Own Adventure style flash piece I tried a few years ago, but it became much more in the reshaping and combination of other ideas.

I’m very grateful to Jonathan Strahan and the Tor.com team for giving this one a good home.

My soundtrack for this story was “The Fall” by Gregory Alan Isakov

Asimov’s Guest Editorial and Locus Award Voting

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

This is going to be a very quick post because I really want to finish revising a chapter of my novella this morning. So, two speedy, but exciting announcements!

  1. I wrote about what it’s like to be an engineer at a vertical farm for a guest editorial in Asimov’s Magazine May/June 2024 issue! You can read it here. This is the first time my engineering career and my writing career have crossed paths.
  2. “Waystation City” is on the Locus Awards Reading List and you can vote for it here until April 15th! This story was originally published in Uncanny Magazine and was picked up for podcast by LeVar Burton Reads last December. There’s so much great work on this list and I’m thrilled to have this story among them.

Okay, I’m heading back to my imaginary world. Have a wonderful Sunday!

New Magic the Gathering Story

On By A. T. GreenblattIn General Ramblings, Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

I’m a few days late with this announcement, but I’m excited to share that I have a new story up in the Magic the Gathering universe called “Battles in the Fields and in the Mind.” It’s a side story to the main March of the March storyline and I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to return to Zendikar and continue Nahiri, Akiri, Kaza and Orah’s story, as well as get to know Linvala and Tazri. It’s a grim tale, but it does offer a spark of light.

I hope you enjoy it.

Cover Art by: Zara Alfonso

My short fiction recommendation this time is The Father Provincial of Mare Imbrium by E. Lily Yu

Long Weekends Should Be Standardized

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Seriously, having a four day weekend has been so nice. I managed to spend part of the long weekend with my family, eating tons of home cooked food and playing with my dog. Hope those of you in the States have enjoyed it as well.

Not much to report on the home front this week. I continue to make headway on short story edits, essays, and new story drafts. Although progress is slower than I would like it to be. (It always is.)

This week, I finished reading the short story collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. I found her storytelling craft exceptional, even though not all of the stories resonated with me. One of the things I liked most about it was how varied and unique each story was in terms of topics, settings, and breath. Each piece had a mix of darkness and humor, though the ratios varied from story to story.

I also saw the animated movie Porco Rosso by Hayao Miyazaki. It came out in 1992, but I never seen it before and there was a matinee over the weekend at one of the dine-in theaters in Brooklyn. So with coffee and truffle popcorn, I watched this strange, beautiful film and was once again fascinated by Miyazaki’s dreamlike way of storytelling. I learned recently that he doesn’t use a script when creating movies. Instead he creates a storyboard and he doesn’t know how the movie is going to end until he draws it.

Which, as someone who has to literally write things down to give them shape and meaning, I find that mind blowing.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with this: If you’re looking for a SFF short story to check out this week, try Slow Communication by Dominique Dickey

Year End Eligibility Post 2022 and Where Else to Find Me

On By A. T. GreenblattIn General Ramblings, Publishing Updates1 Comment

It’s that time of year again and I’m not talking about the holidays, though I’m excited for American Thanksgiving next week. (Four day weekend and homemade cranberry sauce!) Award season for the science fiction, fantasy, and horror community has begun, and it’s good practice to post a year end round up of your work and where to find it.

Also, since Twitter seems on the verge of collapse, I thought I’d mention that you can find me on Mastodon at @atgreenblatt@wandering.shop.

Also, I’m hoping to post on this blog weekly.

Okay, onto the stories. It’s been a bit of a rocky year for me in terms of writing, but three stories of mine were published and in some excellent venues.

A Record of Our Meeting with the Grand Faerie Lord of Vast Space and Its Great Mysteries, Revised

Published March 2022 in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. 7,600 words (novelette)

“It should be noted here, at the beginning of the record, that the decision to invite such an esteemed and unknowable entity was not made lightly nor without a great deal of heated debate among the crew. [Addition: Upon reflection, Pilot Uma and Navigator Wilson conducted most of the debate and, ultimately, made the decision. The events that followed could have perhaps been avoided had they sought wider counsel.] However, it was agreed by all that the potential results were worth the risk. The crew was eager to

Cover art. Astronaut like explorers in foreground, giants in the distance
Ancient Ones by Jose Borges

If We Make It Through This Alive

Published January 2022 in Slate Magazine. 7,000 words (short story)

“The open road is just potholes and misery, but Sabrina loves it anyway. Not that she has anything against the national train system, trains are great. But it’s the challenge, the potential to rebuild everything, that has her doing final checks on Gran’s old Jeep at the starting line of the Great American Road Race.

Not that Gran would’ve recognized her beloved car.”

Cover art. Tricked out Jeep with solar panels
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo/Slate. Photos by Ruben Hanssen/Unsplash, Ravi Sharma/Unsplash, Brandon Green/Unsplash

The Music of a New Path

Published June 2022 in the Bridge to Elsewhere Anthology. 4,000 words (short story)

“Tessa rubbed her face. Click, click went her teeth, but now, her only accompaniment was the ship’s deep hum. The junkyard man had warned her she was on borrowed time with The Castaway when she’d bought it, but there was something, something that Tessa couldn’t quite name, that whispered, Don’t give up on the ship. Not yet“

Cover of Bridge to Elseware

That’s it! What have you read this year that you’ve loved? Have you published something that you’re proud of? Please feel free to leave a comment!

New Story “A Record of Our Meeting with the Grand Faerie Lord of Vast Space and Its Great Mysteries, Revised” at Beneath Ceaseless Skies!

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

I’m a little late to posting about this new story because my life has been a bit insane. A little over a month ago I accepted a new engineering position and now, a handful of weeks later, I’m sitting in an apartment in Brooklyn with my laptop and other essentials, but with most of my belongings in storage.

I’m still reeling from all the changes, but I’m also excited.

But right before I decided to upend my life, I wrote this story. I created it very quickly – when I was extremely tired and my exercise schedule was messed up (hence my writing productivity was also messed up.) I wanted to tell a time-looping story, but I all my initial ideas feel too much like Groundhog Day. The idea of revisions and how a story can change over time has always fascinated me. How you can redirect a story by adding little details here or reframing a moment there. So I decided to try that on an extreme scale with this story.

“A Record of Our Meeting with the Grand Faerie Lord of Vast Space and Its Great Possibilities, Revised” is one of the most difficult stories I have ever written.

At some point, I wasn’t even sure it made sense to anyone but myself – that’s how zoomed in I was to each sentence and every worldbuilding detail. I couldn’t see the larger picture anymore. So I’m eternally grateful to Beneath Ceaseless Skies editor Scott Andrews and my beta readers for their help on this one.

I figured a time-looping story needed a looping song as its soundtrack, so I was listening to Zoë Keating “Possible” on repeat as I wrote and rewrote this story.

Hope you enjoy this science-fantasy story!

New Story: “If We Make It Through This Alive” Up at Future Tense Fiction

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

New story days are the best days. And I’m thrilled to say that my story “If We Make It Through This Alive” is now free to read over at Slate.com’s Future Tense!

I’m so excited to share this story with the world! It’s about a road race across America in a climate-wrecked future where the highway system has been abandoned and trains are the main mode of transportation. I’ve been working on this piece for several months now and it was definitely a challenge to keep it in the short-story word range. There’s a wonderful companion essay to the story “How Heeding Disabled People Can Help Everyone Survive a Crisis” by Damien P. Williams.

This story has several point-of-view characters, each with her own history and goals. One of the biggest challenges was to make sure each character had a chance to tell her piece of the story and to make sure she came alive against the backdrop of where she came from. So, it made sense for Sabrina, Jody, and Fern to have their own theme songs while I was writing this story.

For Sabrina, the song was “Artificial Nocturne” by Metric. For Jody, it was “I Need My Girl” by The National. And for Fern, it was “No Lights, No Lights” by Florence + The Machine.

As always, I hope you enjoy the story and the essay!