It's that time of year to look back at what I had published this past year (and supposedly to advocate for them to appear on year-end recommendation lists and award short lists and the like, but I'm never very good at that part of it). I had 3 short stories published in 2023 (one flash), 2 poems, and one chapbook of microfictions. Plus one short story reprinted in an anthology. "The Life Cycle of a Shadow" appeared in the anthology *A Compendium of Enigmatic Species* It's a pseudo-journalistic piece about the lesser and greater shadows and the threat one specific shadow poses to the world&nbs ..read more

  My story "The Triptych of the Final String" was published last year in New Myths. It's a flash story about stories and what we can learn from each other's stories. For those who've read (and decide now to read...) The Arcist Chronicles books, the story has a loose connection with those novels. And now New Myths has chosen the story to be included in this best-of anthology, Cosmic Muse, with this absolutely stunning cover art. There are lots of excellent stories in here to discover, so order yourself a copy and see what strange worlds you might discover ..read more

My poem "The Alien Words, Formed and Empty" is in the latest issue of Star*Line. It's a poem about aliens, architecture, and communication. Star*Line is the official magazine for the SFPA. This joins a handful of others I've had in various issues. I'm always happy to have something in one of them. Check out the fall issue (or subscribe!) at the magazine's website.   ..read more

 And in the next catching-up-on-things post, I've collected all the Market of Magical Goods drabbles that I used to put up on Curious Fictions, added another dozen that hadn't been published before, and made them into a chapbook. It's something small, but I'm really proud of these micro-fictions--I think you'll enjoy them! What is the Market? It's an open air marketplace where you can buy magical rings and swords and flying carpets, potions and curses and a vast array of fakes. Beware! Each story is exactly 100 words, offering a teasing glimpse into the true powers at work in the market ..read more

 As I said in my last post, I have a variety of things that happened as or just before I was away on a family vacation. Just a quick one today, but one I'm very pleased with, is that Star*Line has accepted another of my poems. "The Alien Words, Formed and Empty" should be in one of the next two issues of Star*Line. Keep your eyes peeled! (And watch for other news here on the blog as well ..read more

  I've been traveling (and even when not traveling, pulled in a thousand directions at once), so I have several different new publications/announcements/news-type things to post about that each deserve their own post. So first, in June my story "What Passes for Eyes in Dreams and Death" was published in Fantasy Magazine. If you subscribed, you were able to read it right away. (Hey, why not subscribe, while we're at it? Amazon is changing the way they allow [read: don't allow] subscriptions, which could have some really bad effects on a lot of SF/fantasy magazines, so the more subscribers ..read more

A bit late to this (and there's more news coming very soon to add to it...). But I'm thrilled that my poem "Hands That Cannot Grasp" appeared in the latest issue of Kaleidotrope. It is a poem of transformation: Why did we do it? Why this transformation into flora, this losing of what we once thought human? Call it a mix of can and curiosity, an alchemy of what-if, a wish to step outside and see beyond. Kaleidotrope always has a good selection of worthy stories and poems, so be sure to read the whole issue (it appears there's no direct link yet to the current issue, until a new issue comes ou ..read more

My flash story "Excavating Lost Languages" came out in that latest issue of Frozen Wavelets! It's short and full of linguistic whimsy and imaginary writing systems, lost to time. Also, as a follow-up to my most recent post, my story from the Enigmatic Species anthology was chosen as a free-to-read feature to promote the book. So, if you haven't bought the anthology yet, you can get a teaser with "Life Cycle of a Shadow." (Then follow through and buy the antho ..read more

 A new flash story came out recently in this anthology, The Compendium of Enigmatic Species! My story is a pseudo-journalistic piece about the lesser and greater shadows and the threat one specific shadow poses to the world. Check it out ..read more

I’m now a full member of SFWA! I was expecting the approval to take longer–I didn’t get the forms submitted until Jan 1 and got the acceptance late Jan 4. When I started trying to get short stories accepted, all the writers I interacted with marked their success by SFWA-qualifying status (whether they ended up joining or not). The per-word rate had (relatively?) recently gone up to 5 cents/word, and for several years I had as one of my yearly goals to get one SFWA-qualifying sale. Then I did, and my goal became to get two more so I could join. I had several at pro-paying markets–Penumbra was ..read more