Tag: writing

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.

Banner with "On Sale Today" and a cover of the anthology with a list of all the contributing authors

New Story in Datlow’s Night and Day Anthology!

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing Updates5 Comments

It’s been a wild and tough week, so I’m a few days late on this one, but I’m really excited to share that I have a story in Ellen Datlow’s Night and Day horror anthology and it’s on sale RIGHT NOW.

For those of you who might not know, Datlow is an amazing editor and a titan of assembling horror anthologies. I mean, I’m still kind of shocked that I get to share a Table of Contents with some of the best (and some of my favorite) authors in horror.

My story “The Wanting” is in the Day half of the collection, and continues to iterate on my obsession with public transportation in my fiction. Fortunately, nothing this crazy has ever happened to me on a bus.

Hope you pick up a copy and enjoy the read!

P.S. If you want to read another creepy, creepy story, can I recommended Ian Muneshwar’s “Beak“?

Schedule for Readercon 2025

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Convention SightingsLeave a comment

It’s almost time for one of my favorite conventions of the year! Readercon is happening in less than two weeks and I’m super excited to see old friends and meet new people. Frankly, these days, community is more important than ever before.

This year I’m on a few panels, plus, I have a reading and a kaffeeklatsch. Here’s the schedule:

  • Reading: A.T. Greenblatt – Friday, July 18, 2025, 14:30 EST
    • Room: Empower / Embrace
  • Kaffeeklatsch: A. T. Greenblatt – Friday, July 18, 2025,18:00 EST
    • Room: Suite 830
  • Panel: Recycling, Reusing and Renewing Stories – Saturday, July 19, 2025, 10:00 EST
    • Room: Salon G/H
    • Description: At last year’s Readercon, Max Gladstone said that he modeled his Craft Sequence on Samuel R. Delany’s principle that the answer from one book in a series should become the problem of the next book. Some authors like to take multiple runs at the same story premise. What other ways do authors revisit their own work, what uses can that serve, and what are the pitfalls?
    • With: Gwynne Garfinkle, Marisca Pichette Max Gladstone P. Djèlí Clark
  • Panel: We Demand Stories About U.S. Policy – Sunday, July 20, 2025, 11:00 EST
    • Room: Create / Collaborate
    • Description: We Demand Stories is Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers’ limited series salon. AI, eco-fiction, near future space exploration, post-Tolkien (postcolonial) world building, and death: BSFW takes on these topics and more with writers and academics who can broaden our understanding beyond the fear-driven news feed. After very brief readings from panelists, this salon invites the audience to join in a uniquely formatted conversation about U.S. policy. What are the many ways it affects the stories we’re telling now, or want to talk about in the future? 
    • With: Beto O’Byrne, Bradley Robert Parks, BrightFlame, Rachel Gutin, and Rob Cameron

As always, if you are going to be at Readercon this year, please don’t hesitate to come say hello!

Strange Horizons kickstarter banner. Face in a black background with white stripes over tops

New Story: “View Window” in Strange Horizons Magazine

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

What happens when I try to write a literary story and fail? “View Window” is the result. It’s my newest novelette and it’s part of the Strange Horizons Summer Fundraiser Issue. (Which could use some help, if you can.)

This story wrote itself, slowly unfolding, pulling lots of inspiration from some international travel I did last year and it used some of the ideas that I could never find the right place for. Initially I wanted to tell a semi-haunted story that found joy in language, but it kept getting stranger. So here we are.

It was a difficult, but fun piece to write.

My soundtracks for this one were Movement VII by Robert Koch, Julien Marchal and Highgate by Shearwater

This story is different that what I normally write, but I’m proud of how it pushed my skills. I hope you enjoy too!

My short story recommendation this time is “The Angel Azrael Rode Into The Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse” by Peter Darbyshire

Cover of June 2025 Issue of Clarkesworld Magazine

New Story: “In the Shells of Broken Things” at Clarkesworld!

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

Time has been a strange and warped lens these last few years. I didn’t realize it until finished this story and I looked at my submission history that I hadn’t sent a story to Clarkesworld in four years. In my mind, it had only been a year or two.

Which is all to say, I’m so thrilled to have a story published in Clarkesworld Magazine again! This one is called “In the Shells of Broken Things” and it took me a while to get it right. It was one of those stories where I didn’t know what it wanted to be for many drafts. But oh man, when the story finally came together, it was one of those moments that make writing worth all the work.

I based the protagonist disability on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long COVID, neither of which I have. So, I needed to do a bunch of research for this story and get some sensitivity readers to go over it. I also got feedback from a friend dealing with a long term injury who gave me suggestions for emotional beats.

My point is, even when you have a disability, you still have to do the work to get it right in your art.

My soundtrack for this story was “Be On Your Way” by Daughter. (Yes, I have my favorite writing bands.)

And if you’d like to check out some stories about characters with ME/CFS/Long COVID by writers with ME/CFS/Long COVID, I recommend:

Hope you enjoy the story!

Wil Wheaton against a blue background with a book and the word "It's Storytime" across the bottom

“If We Make It Through This Alive” is on It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton

On By A. T. GreenblattIn General RamblingsLeave a comment

I think I mentioned that I had a few cool things coming out over the next couple of weeks, right? Yeah, I’m a fiction writer, but I wasn’t lying about this. I’m excited to share that Wil Wheaton has a new podcast where he narrates a short story once a week. It’s call It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton and it’s almost finished its first season. And in that line up is “If We Make It Through This Alive” which was originally published in Slate as part of the Future Tense series.

Now it’s in podcast form!

My nine year old self who loved loved loved The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine is completely beside herself right now. Adult A.T. is pretty thrilled as well.

If you are new to my work, welcome! If you would like to check out more, most of my stories can be found under the “Publications” page on this blog. (May I recommend Waystation City either in print form or over on LeVar Burton Reads?) If you like my work and would like to support me, please consider getting a subscription or supporting a Patreon to a short story magazine. Here’s a list.

Short fiction magazines are really struggling right now and could use any help they can get. They allow me and many other writers to keep telling stories that can find their way to readers like you.

Thanks for reading!

Black and white paper cutout of a rocket ship in a sea of stars.

New Story: “Adventures on the Omega Train at Night” at Sunday Morning Transport

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

It’s been a few months since I updated this blog, but that’s about to change. I’ve been writing a ton recently and this is the first of a series of stories that are coming out in the next few weeks in a variety of places.

As of this morning, “Adventures on the Omega Train at Night” is now live over at Sunday Morning Transport. You’ll need to sign up to read it, but this is a link for a free 60-day access to the magazine. https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/smt2024

This was a fun story to write – the seed of the idea came to me when my friend and I were trying to get home after an event in Manhattan and the train went express midway through the trip. And I said “Well that’s we get for taking the train after 10pm, you can never guess where you’ll end up.”

I’m trying not to write too many stories inspired by NYC, but this one wouldn’t leave me alone. So many of the little details are pulled from real life and places as well as the awful comments from strangers. (Which, fortunately, didn’t happened all in one night.)

My soundtrack for this story was “Things Behind Things Behind Things” by Bon Iver.

Enjoy!

P.S. My story recommendation this time is Butterfly Pavilion by G. Willow WIlson

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!

Readercon 2024 and Event at Pandemonium

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Convention SightingsLeave a comment

I’m so excited to be going to Readercon in person again this year! As I’ve said in the past, it’s one of my favorite conventions. But what makes this year noteworthy is that on Sunday, July 14th, I’ll be doing a special panel at Pandemonium Bookstore with John Wiswell, Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, and Max Gladstone! (How cool is that?)

Here’s my Readercon schedule:

The Pandemonium Book store event is totally separate from Readercon and is open to everyone. It’s at 6:30pm on Sunday, July 14th. We’ll be having a Readercon-like panel, which basically means we’ll be geeking out about books and story craft for an hour. More information for that can be found here.

As always, I hope to see you at one of these events. Or if you run into me in the hallway or at the bookstore, please don’t hesitate to say hi.

My short story recommendation this time is The Spindle of Necessity by B. Pladek over at Strange Horizons!