Tag: writing

Story Hour with Tobias Buckell and a Cool Philly Writers’ Workshop

On By A. T. GreenblattIn General RamblingsLeave a comment

This is going to be another one of my infamous quick and to-the-point posts, because I’m way behind on a writing project and I also just have returned from a celebratory weekend with friends and will probably fall asleep at 9 pm tonight.

But before I do, I want to share that I will be reading at this week’s Story Hour with Tobias Buckell! It’s free for all and will be online at 7 pm PST/10 pm EST on Wednesday, April 22nd. I am excited to be returning to Story Hour and I am a huge fan of Tobias and his work. You can watch the reading here: https://www.storyhour2020.com/

The second thing I want to share is there is a very cool new climate education workshop for writers in the Philly area called Buried Creek Collective. Here’s the information:

“Buried Creek Collective, a new initiative to foster informed storytelling about climate change in Philadelphia, is thrilled to announce that applications for its first cohort of writers is now open! The fall 2026 Climate Education for Writers Program teaches participants about Philadelphia’s changing environment — and what scientists and dedicated community members are doing about it — through hands-on experiences, meetings with experts, and instruction on waterways, land use, ecology, and infrastructure. Together, we can envision positive futures for a habitable and healthy Philadelphia.

Writers of all genres, and at any stage of their career, are eligible. The course is free of charge. The application deadline is May 31, 2026. Apply online at buriedcreekcollective.com.”

Please consider applying to the workshop or passing it on to someone you know!

More updates soon!

Cover of Uncanny Magazine Issue 68

New Story: “The Doorkeepers” in Uncanny Magazine

On By A. T. GreenblattIn Publishing UpdatesLeave a comment

Happy New Year! 2026 is starting off right with a story I am incredibly excited to see out in the world. It’s called The Doorkeepers and it’s now live over at Uncanny Magazine. There is also a podcast version that includes an interview with me at the end.

I love writing stories where “times gets a bit melty” as Caroline Yoachim describes it. They also drive me crazy and there was a moment over the summer when I was working on an early draft in a coffee shop where I became convinced that this story was never going to work. Actually, the feeling was so bad, that the barista asked if I was alright. (This was in Brooklyn and she’s an artist too, so she got it.)

And honestly, that original idea wasn’t going to work. But iterating on it allowed me to change the focus of the story and ask different, more interesting questions than before.

My soundtrack was “Latter Days” by Big Red Machine and Anais Mitchell

Hope you enjoy the story!

P.S. My short fiction recommendation this time is “All That Means or Mourns” by Ruthanna Emrys

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.