New Story in Fireside Magazine!

I'm kicking off June with a brand new story at Fireside Magazine.

"Gender Reveal Box, $16.95" is a Horror story told through an ad. Ad copy is a rich space to tell weird stories, since most don't read them in the first place. It'd been too long since I'd written a story in an unusual format. I missed what flash fiction can let you explore.

Here we're exploring a revolutionary new product: a box for gender reveals. It seems benign at first, but hints about what the product actually contains, and what it does to anyone who witnesses the revelation, start to clue you in that something's wrong here.

It's great to have this drop during Pride Month. It's definitely the most chaotic story about gender I've written.

You can read it for free right here.

"We Are Not Phoenixes" - New Story live at Fireside Fiction!

Hello beloved readers! I have a new story for you today, and one that is quite personal. It's called "We Are Not Phoenixes," and it's in the new issue of Fireside Magazine.

It's a very short story about what pyromancers can do to show kindness and entertain patients in hospice. Magic is often used to damage or to heal. But magic has boundaries. When we're delicate and it's limited, how can we make meaning out of our actions? Even if they're magical?

The story was directly inspired by a blog post from Elephant's Child a few years ago. She posted about a visit to a hospice where alpacas were roaming around the compound. It turned out a local farm lent them to the patients for some gentle entertainment.

As someone who is chronically ill, and someone who has lost many friends to prolonged illness, this was powerful to me. I wondered: why doesn't Fantasy ever do that?

This story is my answer to that query. It's dedicated to many wonderful people who I won't see again, and who I am very glad to have known.

You can read the story for free at this link.

2020 Awards Eligibility Post

This year is actually almost over! Sure, some part of you says it's still March, but that part is sleep deprived and needs a hug. 

And because 2020 year is almost over, awards nominations are starting to open up. That leaves us writers with the nervous task of collecting our awards-eligible material.

Below, I humbly present the stories and articles I've written this year. This has been the most fruitful year of my career, with more publications and fan outreach than ever. I'm profoundly grateful to everyone who has enjoyed my weirdo stories. "Open House on Haunted Hill," for instance, is the single most popular thing I've ever written, despite being exactly the sort of thing so many people told me I couldn't and shouldn't write. Thank you all who proved those voices wrong.

Thank you to anyone who has space on their ballots and end-of-year-lists for any of my work.

"Gender and Other Faulty Software" is live at Fireside Magazine

I'm happy to present "Gender and Other Faulty Software," a new short story live at Fireside Magazine!

It's the story of a crew that reclaims abandoned spaceships by installing a new operating system in them. But the newest spaceship finds some bugs in the OS's code - and particularly, has questions to ask about why it needs a gender. This story is already getting lovely responses around Twitter.

I have to thank Jordan Kurella and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor for beta reading this story. They did a wonderful job pointing me in the right direction to polish it.

This is my fourth story at Fireside. I'm overjoyed to keep bringing fun and unusual pieces to their pages. You can read the story for free by clicking this link.

Recommended Reading List of Short Stories 2018

This was a year that was improved so much by short fiction. Stories I could finish in the waiting room at the doctor's, or on the train ride to helping someone with their hardship. They fit into so many openings of life. And there were such strong developments in the field this year, especially the opening of Robot Dinosaurs, a magazine that brought frequently funny and uplifting stories to a field that too often neglects them.

If you want to keep up with short fiction, I strongly recommended following reviewers you trust, starting with A.C. Wise and Charles Payseur. I fell behind in reviewing short fiction this year, but never stopped reading.

So whether you're reading stories for awards, or reading to feel less alone in the universe, here are some things you shouldn't miss. These are more stories than can fit on any one ballot, but that's the fault of awards, not storytellers.

New Story: "Fascism and Facsimiles" live at Fireside Magazine

I have one more story for you this summer! It's been a busy few months and I've capped them off with a new story at Fireside Magazine.

"Fascism and Facsimiles" is a superhero story about henchpeople. The world is about to learn that Captain Democracy isn't a great hero, but a sleeper agent for the evil organization Kommand. It might possibly be a parody of something, not that our heroes are aware. Two underlings at Kommand are startled to learn the guy who's been kicking their heads in for years is actually a co-worker. They're more surprised to learn just how evil their employers are. It's a story about work friendships and about the struggle to refuse to be complicit.

This is my third story at Fireside, following "Bones at the Door" and "A Silhouette Against Armageddon." I'm so happy to have another story find its home with them again.

You can read the story for free by clicking here.

Two Publications!

Friends! How's your summer going? Because mine's been a heck of a ride.

In the last week I've had two very different things published in venues I adore. I'd like to share them with you before August carries us all off to parts unknown.

First up is "A Silhouette Against Armageddon," my latest flash to be published at Fireside Magazine. This is my third piece they've published, and I'm quite flattered. The story follows a man who's afraid someone is breaking into his coffin. Why he's woken up in his coffin in the first place is a matter of some consternation.

I honestly think it's one of my best pieces of fiction to date, and it would've been a highlight of the Bathroom Monologues run. As proud as I am of it, I was still surprised by how many people have been sharing it around the internet. I've never been tagged in so many personal messages on social media like this. If you've already read and shared it, thank you. You brightened a dark week for me.

You can read the story for free right here.

The second piece is an essay that was a long time coming. Uncanny Magazine is running a Kickstarter to fund Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, a special issue written and edited entirely by disabled writers. It's picking where Lightspeed's Destroy issues left off, and it's something long overdue in the field. I'm happy to have contributed a personal essay to the drive.

My essay is "BFFs in the Apocalypse" (I still can't believe they let me use that title), about the paucity of friendships between disabled characters in fiction. Usually we're a token member of a group of otherwise non-disabled protagonists. That's one reason why The Stand is so significant to me - its friendship between Nick and Tom is precious and should be the start of much more in our literature.

You can read the essay for free right here at Uncanny's Kickstarter. If you like it and believe in the cause, please consider becoming a backer!

Story Sale: "A Silhouette Against Armageddon" sold to Fireside!

I'm happy to announce that I've sold a new story to Fireside Magazine! I'm excited to be back with them, as they publish such a great tonal variety of stories. You like tragedies? Weird SciFi? Genre satire? They've got you covered.

My new story is "A Silhouette Against Armageddon," the story of a graverrobbing in process - from the point of view of the man in the coffin. He's not happy about having his eternal rest spoiled.


This will be my second publication at Fireside, following 2015's "Bones at the Door." I promise this story will devour fewer children.

"Bones at the Door" is out in the new Fireside Fiction

I'm thrilled to present my flash story, "Bones at the Door," as part of the newest issue of Fireside Fiction.

On Monday, a squirrel skeleton appeared on the sidewalk in front of Mandy's house. Her parents didn't listen until Tuesday, when a cat's skeleton appeared on their front steps. On Wednesday, it was a dog's backbone at their door. The adults were terrified, but Mandy had an idea. This story is her idea.

The story appears in Fireside alongside work from acclaimed writers Sofia Samatar, Keffy Kehrli, and Lilith Saintcrow. I'm flattered to be in their company. Editor Brian J. White has done a heck of a job with this issue.

You can read "Bones at the Door" on Fireside Fiction's website here.

If you want to support this wonderful magazine, you can subscribe or hit up its Patreon here. The full issue will be up for sale soon.

This is one of those stories I showed to very few people. It's atypical Horror that I feared would actually get Fireside to blacklist me, and praise be to Cassie Nichols and Max Cantor for both helping me edit it, and for convincing me to send it their way. Both Cassie and Max have always been lovely friends and beta readers. You'd be lucky to meet them.