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Hello! While most years I compile a page of award eligibility posts, this year I’m going to be on the road in November, and adding that responsiblity to everything else I’m doing that month seems a little crazypants. So if you’ve got an award eligibility post, I invite (and encourage) you to drop a link to it in the comments here!
I had no novels published in 2022 myself, but I’d certainly love it if you’d check out my short story, “The Woman Who Wanted to be Trees,” which appeared in Slate Magazine, and consider recommending it for Hugo or Nebula Award reading.
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It’s that time again! Once again I have created this post for consolidating fantasy and science fiction award eligibility round-ups. If you are an F&SF writer, editor, podcast, or publisher working in comics, fiction or games, I hope you’ll let people know what you have that they should be reading.
Past things I have written about why writers should do this include On Awards: To Be Pushy Or Not To Be Pushy (2014), The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated Awards Process (2015), and To Eligibility Post or Not to Eligibility Post? (2016).
Want a sample post? Here’s mine for this year.
Here are the previous such round-up posts from 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
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It’s been a great year. Here’s some highlights. I have tried to identify what length and genre everything is, as well as where you can get it. The podcast I work with, IF THIS GOES ON (Don’t Panic), is eligible for Hugo nominations.
In January, my story “Shot Through with Shards of Light” appeared in SPACE: 1975, SPACE OPERA STORIES, 70S STYLE edited by Robert Jeschonek. This story is set in the same universe as my space opera, YOU SEXY THING, and grew out of thinking about a particular aspect of that universe.
March of 2021, my short story “Crazy Beautiful” appeared in The Magazine of F&SF as part of Sheree Renee Thomas’s inaugural issue. This story is very important to me, speaking about something that I deeply care about, and I’ve been stoked that so many people liked it. It is my only story that starts with a Bob Ross quote. Rich Horton said of it, “Perhaps my favorite story from early in 2021.”
In April, Jennifer Brozek and I turned in the manuscript for our co-edited anthology, THE REINVENTED HEART. So exciting! I got a piece of game writing in, with “The Sisterhood of the Shovel,” which appeared in THE WELL from Shoeless Pete Games.
My Beneath Ceaseless Skies novelette, Every Breath a Question, Every Heartbeat an Answer, also appeared in April. This is a Tabat story, and features the protagonists of “Hoofsore and Weary” and “Brittle Are My Boughs, And Sorrowful My Heart.”
Some things reviewers said about Every Breath a Question, Every Heartbeat an Answer
In May, the third book of the Tabat Quartet, EXILES OF TABAT, appeared from Wordfire Press. In it, Bella, Teo, and Lucy all adventure outside the city, with very different results. The final book, GODS OF TABAT, will appear in 2022.
In July, a story that my spouse Wayne and I wrote together, “Stand and Deliver,” appeared in DARK MATTER magazine. It’s a story of fatherhood and time travel…sort of.
In August I actually did some traveling. I went to Laramie, Wyoming, and was part of the Laucnh Pad workshop, an effort aimed at getting more science into one’s science fiction, and I learned so much that I’ve got an entire notebook’s worth of notes.
In October, my flash piece “A Tourist’s Guide to Terror,” appeared in Jennifer Brozek’s anthology, 99 TINY TERRORS.
In early November, my collaboration with Jermaine Martin, “Riders of the Void,” appeared in GUNFIGHT ON EUROPA STATION, edited by David Boop. We took one of my favorite westerns, “Shane,” and used it as the spark to start our story and I’m pleased with the result!
In mid-November, my long-delayed space opera, YOU SEXY THING, appeared finally! Amazon named it one of the 20 best F&SF books of 2021 and there’s been some great reviews. Here’s some of what people have said.
I did a lot of other stuff, like teaching for the Norwescon Writers Workshop, Cascade Writers, Williamette Writers, and Clarion West. I read for Older Writer’s Grant for Speculative Lit Foundation as well as for a middle grade contest. I did a holy crapton of readings, and plenty of panels, which I should have tracked better in order to include here.
The school did nicely again this year and I added several on-demand classes of my own:
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Hello! I have only a scattering of stuff this year (but 2021 is going to be a doozy, I can tell you that right now, because at least two novels, a novelette, appearances in BCS and Mag of F&SF, co-editing an anthology, a non-fiction project, and some other stuff are all coming up, wheeeee!)
Anyhow. When you are reading for awards, here’s what I published in 2020. But if you want a huge batch of them, what you should really do is consult the big post of F&SF awards eligibility 2020 posts that is here — and if you’ve got something that should be on there, let me know.
My favorite story of the year, which appeared in Daily Science Fiction, is “I Decline,” a short story which grew out of a writing prompt, write a complaint letter about an abstract concept. If you’re a SFWA member, I hope you’ll consider adding it to your recommended reading suggestions. Similarly, if you’re reading for the Hugos or Eugie Foster awards, I hope you’ll consider it when nominating. If you’d prefer to listen to it in audio form, I gotcha!.
“Because It Is Bitter” is an alternative-history novella, part of the AND THE LAST TRUMP SHALL SOUND project I did with Harry Turtledove and James Morrow. Want to buy it at Powell’s? Here’s the link.
I wish there were flash fiction awards, both because I appreciate the hell out of well-done flash, but also because I produced a number of good ones this year. Beside the earlier mentioned “I Decline,” the piece I did, At the End of the Song, A Ghost is Waiting, which appeared in Three-Lobed Burning Eye, is another nicely done piece.
“How Joyful the Work” is a clockpunk re-centering of the Odyssey on those left behind with a touch of lesbian romance, written for Predators in Petticoats.
Red Boots Blues is a cyberpunk mash-up of “The Red Shoes” and “The Girl who Trod on a Loaf,” done for the UPON A ONCE TIME anthology from Air & Nothingness Press. Also fun to write, and I let myself loose with poetic language sometimes. AAN does beautiful books and I picked up some to give as presents this year. Here’s a reading of that for you:
Wayne and I wrote a story together, “Stand and Deliver,” which appeared in Dark Matter Magazine. We wrote it while on a road trip together, and I hope we’ll do more in the future, because he’s fun to write with!
Patreon stories primarily were installments of serial novella Baby Driver, a #hopepulp focused on Pat Savage, cousin of Doc Savage, and her crew of five bad-ass women, but there were a number of flash pieces, snippets, and roughs from playing writing games.
I am part of a podcast this year! In 2020 we kicked off hopepunk-centered If This Goes On (Don’t Panic), cohosted by Alan Bailey, Diane Morrison, Rachel Renee, and myself. I can take very little credit for this project, but great pride in being associated with it, and we’ve had some awesome episodes over the course of our first year.
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We’ve got the details finally nailed down a bit better on this project and so I am posting an official announcement.
I am very delighted to say that Jennifer Brozek is co-editing. Jenn’s put together a couple of dozen anthologies and I am ecstatic to have her organizational skills, keen editing eye, and sharp publicity skills on the project. I am very grateful that she’s signed on, because I looked at the amount of work already piled on my plate for the coming year and was panicking. This project is happening because she’s agreed to do it.
In the convulsions, I am afraid I have shortchanged the slushreaders. I throttled back on soliciting submissions during the month they were open and didn’t conduct the training sessions that I meant to do. What I would like to do, if you are on the list for that (and I’m going to send out an e-mail about this as well) is give you folks a Zoom session where we get to talk about slushreading in a way that may be useful and also keep you on a list for my next project.
Everything else remains the same except that solicited stories have a bit more time in their deadlines! If you submitted a story, it is still under consideration. Some of the solicited stories have been arriving and we’re both excited about the project coming out mid-way through 2021 from Arc Manor.
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This is an elaboration of the first part of my most recent newsletter, because I wanted to spread the message a bit farther, and expand on some of it. If you want to see the rest of the newsletter, which has class news and a giveaway for a copy of the new book, it’s here.
It’s always exciting for me when a project comes out, and particularly when it’s an actual book. Last week marked a special “book birthday” because my collaboration with James Morrow and Harry Turtledove, And the Last Trump Shall Sound, came out. I wrote the novella pre-pandemic, and it was an interesting challenge in multiple ways, partly because of the subject matter and where it is placed in time and partly because of the wildly different natures of the three novellas.
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Things keep moving along well and I thought I’d check in. My reward for winning a Nebula is that I’m using part of teaching plus Storybundle money to upgrade my workspace. I just put in the order for a fancy standing desk and stool, and am going to retire my faithful IKEA hack deck that I’ve been using the last six years or so.
This will be a much wider workspace, so it also means I can pick up a second monitor and have a lot more real estate when teaching/writing. I had that with my former set-up and it really made a difference when working. I’ve been holding off on this while waiting to move and finally figured I might as well go ahead, since it seems likely we’re here for the duration.
As to why I feel justified in rewarding myself, it’s productivity and nose to the grindstone! Here’s some testimony to 2020’s work in the form of my current writing/editing projects and where they stand:
The space opera series: The copy-edits for You Sexy Thing are in and the editor didn’t mind that I shifted around a couple of scenes in doing them. The listing is up! Still waiting to see what the cover looks like. The second book is currently at incoherent first draft status. Need to start pulling notes together for book three.
The Tabat quartet: Finishing up Exiles of Tabat ASAP is the current big project on deck. I also have some notes for the final book that I need to start putting in one place.
Baby Driver: Need to catch up on writing this. I have someone interested in publishing the final product, and I would also like to do it as a comic book, so I’ve got 3-4 pages of that script written.
Books hovering in the wings: a rewrite of the MG book, a literary horror stand-alone, a Tank Girl/Harley Quinn/Doctor Strange mash-up set in post-apocalyptic Seattle (stand-alone?); fleshing out an existing project that will be a literary SF novella.
Upcoming publications: Because It is Bitter (novella) in AND THE LAST TRUMP SHALL SOUND; Every Breath a Question, Every Heartbeat an Answer (novelette) in BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES; Crazy Beautiful (story) in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION; Snowflakes (story) in LAST CITIES OF EARTH; Stand and Deliver (story, with Wayne Travis Rambo ) in DARK MATTER MAGAZINE ; I Decline (flash) in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION).
Current story projects: a space western short story in collaboration for an anthology request; a space opera short story for an anthology request; a near future caper novella; a near future SF story, the usual smattering of flash.
I also have an upcoming anthology project that I just finished looking over the contract for; look for slush reader calls and guidelines soon but don’t mail me until they’re posted!
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It’s that time of year again when I urge my students and mentees not to be shy about spreading word of the great stuff they’ve done over the course of the year. I’ve blogged before about how important it is particularly for marginalized writers, and you can find my usual round-up of such posts here along with A.C. Wise’s here.
What did I publish over the course of the year? The thing I’m proudest of is my novelette, CARPE GLITTER, which just came out from Meerkat Press. It is available in both electronic and print form. If you’re reading for awards and need a copy, please let me know.
Other things I had published include:
A Merchant Has Maxims (novelette) UNFETTERED III, edited by Shawn Speakman
A Merchant had a journal since first learning to write. A Merchant without one felt that lack like a missing limb, something Essa kept reaching for and not finding. She already missed being able to flip through it at night, to figure out the results of different actions and what part each God had played, from small ones like Kepterto, who handled tailors, or Rilriliworhaomu, Trade God of Hypothetical Marital Alliances, to the larger ones like Enba and Anbo, Want and Supply.
Big Rural (short story), THE WEIGHT OF LIGHT, edited by Joey Eschrich and Clark A. Miller
She gulped down the last of the water and stuck the bottle in her purse. The tomato red sun rolled on the horizon, sending long black shadows walking across the land, towards the enormous black square that was Phase One of the Sol Dominion power plant, glittering in the last of the sunlight. You could barely see the storage structures scattered among them like enormous alien flowers, many petalled and made of dark carbonized plastic with an oily undersheen of cobalt and purple.
Arms folded, she looked towards the town bordering that square to the east, where lights were flickering alive. She could name most of them. The gas station. The diner. The tiny grocery/hardware/drugstore locals just called “the store.” The two block strip that was Main Street, the grade school on one end, the high school on the other, but meeting in shared sports fields: baseball, soccer. Still no football stadium. The coal plant, unlit now.
When you came home again, even “the big rural” as the song called it, things were supposed to have changed. Here the only change was that black square. Between the town lights and the scattered but symmetrical lights surrounding the plant, a dark strip, perhaps a mile wide, stretched, unlit. As though town and plant had turned their backs on each other.
A Hand Extended, (short story), CITIES OF DUST, PLANES OF LIGHT, edited by Todd Sanders
The person closest to the mage was an Ettilite, all four arms folded. Despite stiffly formal body language, he was dressed simply for his race: plain brown tunic drawn over his humanoid torso’s purple skin, and matching trews and”¦were those boots? On shipboard you never needed such a thing, and coming down to Tarn had been a revelation to Niko in her flimsy ship-sandals. Imagine having to dress for a totally random circumstance called “weather”? It was absurd. She hated this place.
Niko gnawed at a cuticle, then caught herself and dropped her hand back into her lap. Stay calm and don’t expend energy. Save it for the Threefold Gauntlet.
How I Come to Be the Queen of Treacle, (short story), WONDERLAND, edited by Marie Keegan and Paul Kane
When we grimbled, how we grambled, children, down in those treacle mines, with a slow syrup slurry that clung to your boots, your hands, and every bit of skin, so you’d lick your lips, vicious-like, and taste gritty sugar and wonder what was happening up in the blue-sky world. And then we grimbled and we grambled more, and when we were weary walking, sleep stepping, we came up to the wasty world and tumbled into our blankets, and then in the morning before the sun came into the sky, we went back down and did it all again.
Broken all My Boughs and Brittle My Heart (short story), UNLOCKING THE MAGIC, edited by Vivian Caethe
It was a lizard dropping on her face from the ceiling that woke Ambra in a panic. They ran back and forth all night, feasting on spiders and midges and the slower moths, but they were sticky-footed and rarely lost their grip. This one scampered away while she smacked herself in the face, much harder than she’d intended, so that she saw stars and bit her tongue, all at once.
Dawn, seeping gray, outlined the window, showing the shutter slats as faint lines of light. She nursed her tongue, which felt awkward and painful in her mouth, and swallowed blood as she swung herself up and out of bed, abandoning thought of sleep. Once she’d had a soldier’s knack of being able to sleep anywhere, anytime, but nowadays that skill was long gone and she was lucky to pluck a few uneasy hours from a night.
Cold stone struck her feet as she stood, and she fished around under the bed for the knitted socks that served her as slippers, disreputable and threadbare but warmer than being barefoot. The narrow chamber had only the single window; she moved to it and swung the shutters open, then leaned out on the wide stone sill.
The Chosen One (flash story) Patreon
Neighbors Poem poem, Patreon
April Rain (poem), Patreon
Quick Gulch Poem (poem), Patreon
Poem for Sarah, this blog
Nonfiction and other sundry things
Patreon content varied but included things like this story wrangling session, special convention ribbons, and so many pictures of my cat Taco
Video tutorial on researching and evaluating story markets
Video on submitting to story markets
An on-demand flash fiction class
Nonfiction essay for Clarkesworld, Stories That Change the World
Edited political science fiction anthology IF THIS GOES ON
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If you’re not familiar with the story, it appears here on the excellent online publication Beneath Ceaseless Skies, or you can buy an e-copy on Amazon or Smashwords. If you’re too impatient, here are some of the pertinent details: steampunk world, asylum for those injured by the war, nurse with a secret, doctor with an evil crow, wacky hijinks ensure.
The story takes place in a dystopian steampunk setting that I’d wandered around the edges of previously in “Clockwork Fairies” and “Rare Pears and Greengages”. This story got me far enough into that territory that it spurred others: “Her Windowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart,” “Snakes on a Train,” and “Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, Where Do You Wander?” I’ve been calling the series Altered America, and you can see some of the images I’ve used for inspiration here.
And the amount of effort involved in writing the protagonist that appeared to me scared me. Transgendered, Native American, poor, and disabled. How could I write that other without offending someone? Better folks than I have battered themselves against that question. But you can’t do something without trying, so I gave it a shot. I strove to do my best by my protagonist: to explain his background, his history, the way he thought, and his relationship with Jesus. Which is another way my character is unlike me: he is struggling with his Christianity, while I’m Unitarian, a faith that has taught me a great deal, and which I embrace, but which draws on, rather than consists wholly of, Christianity.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
(horror, short story) The LED bug kicks feebly, trying to push itself away from the wall. Its wings are rounds of mica, and the hole in its carapace where someone has tacked it to the graying boards reveals cogs and gears, almost microscopic in their dimension. The light from its underside is the cobalt of distress.
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