New story out today! The Thing, With Feathers is live in Uncanny magazine, so if you want birds, lighthouses, hope…here you go!
And if that’s not enough for you, the astute Caroline Yoachim (also known as my buddy Caroline Yoachim…) interviewed me about the story. And about other things too! So I hope you enjoy the whole combination.
While I was at ConFusion, I read a story called The Deepest Notes of the Harp and Drum. Coincidentally it was published in BCS at the beginning of the con! There is also a podcast version! Enjoy! (Murder ballads….)
The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls, by Senaa Ahmad (Strange Horizons)
The House on the Moon, by William Alexander (Uncanny)
The Oracle and the Sea, by Megan Arkenberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Psychopomps of Central London, by Julia August (The Dark)
The Velvet Castles of the Night, by Claire Eliza Bartlett (Daily Science Fiction)
She Still Loves the Dragon, by Elizabeth Bear (Uncanny)
Mountaineering, by Leah Bobet (Strange Horizons)
The Feather Wall, by Octavia Cade (Reckoning)
To This You Cling, With Jagged Fingernails, by Beth Cato (Fireside)
The Mansion of Endless Rooms, by L. Chan (Syntax and Salt)
By the Hand That Casts It, by Stephanie Charette (Shimmer)
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again, by Zen Cho (B&N SF&F)
Odontogenesis, by Nino Cipri (Fireside)
Octopus, by Martha Darr (Fiyah)
Court of Birth, Court of Strength, by Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Forest Spirits, by Michael J. DeLuca (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Bondye Bon, by Monique Desir (Fiyah)
Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse, by S. B. Divya (Uncanny)
Rapture, by Meg Elison (Shimmer)
Thunderstorm in Glasgow, July 25, 2013, by Amal El-Mohtar (Fireside)
Time, Like Water, by Amal El-Mohtar (The Rubin)
The Word of Flesh and Soul, by Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com)
Carboundum > /Dev/Null, by Annalee Flower Horne (Fireside)
The Things That We Will Never Say, by Vanessa Fogg (Daily Science Fiction)
Stet, by Sarah Gailey (Fireside)
Furious Girls, by Juliana Goodman (Fiyah)
A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies, by Alix E. Harrow (Apex)
The Guitar Hero, by Maria Haskins (Kaleidotrope)
Ten Things I Didn’t Do, by Maria Haskins (Pseudopod)
Periling Hand, by Justin Howe (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
More Sea Than Tar, by Osahon Ize-Iyamu (Reckoning)
Five Functions of Your Bionosaur, by Rachael K. Jones (Robot Dinosaur Fiction)
Midnight Burritos With Zozrozir, by Rachael K. Jones (Daily Science Fiction)
When I Was Made, by Kathryn Kania (Robot Dinosaur Fiction)
Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying, by Alice Sola Kim (Tin House)
The Thing About Ghost Stories, by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny)
A House by the Sea, by P.H. Lee (Uncanny)
The Coin of Heart’s Desire, by Yoon Ha Lee (Lightspeed)
Robo-Liopleurodon!, by Darcie Little Badger (Robot Dinosaur Fiction)
A Complex Filament of Light, by S. Qiouyi Lu (Anathema)
The Foodie Federation’s Dinosaur Farm, by Luo Longxiang (translated by Andy Dudak) (Clarkesworld)
A Cradle of Vines, by Jennifer Mace (Cast of Wonders)
Object-Oriented, by Arkady Martine (Fireside)
Ava Paints the Horses, by Ville Meriläinen (Cast of Wonders)
More Tomorrow, by Premee Mohamed (Automata Review)
The Thing in the Walls Wants Your Small Change, by Virginia Mohlere (Luna Station Quarterly)
The Chariots, the Horsemen, by Stephanie Malia Morris (Apex)
Cerise Sky Memories, by Wendy Nikel (Nature)
Birch Daughter, by Sara Norja (Fireside)
Blessings, by Naomi Novik (Uncanny)
drop some amens, by Brandon O’Brien (Uncanny)
Don’t Pack Hope, by Emma Osborne (Nightmare)
Even to the Teeth, by Karen Osborne (Robot Dinosaur Fiction)
The Bodice, the Hem, the Woman, Death, by Karen Osborne (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
50 Ways to Leave Your Fairy Lover, by Aimee Picchi (Fireside)
I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny)
The Court Magician, by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed)
Canada Girl Vs. The Thing Inside Pluto, by Lina Rather (Flash Fiction Online)
it me, ur smol, by A. Merc Rustad
The Sweetness of Honey and Rot, by A. Merc Rustad (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Tamales in Space, and Other Phrases for the Beginning Speaker, by Gabriela Santiago (Strange Horizons)
An Aria for the Bloodlords, by Hannah Strom-Martin (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Sonya Taaffe’s די ירושה (Uncanny)
Four-Point Affective Calibration, by Bogi Takács (Lightspeed)
Spatiotemporal Discontinuity, by Bogi Takács (Uncanny)
Yard Dog, by Tade Thompson (Fiyah)
My Name Is Cybernetic Model XR389F, and I Am Beautiful, by Monica Valentinelli (Uncanny)
Dear David, by Yael van der Wouden (Long Leaf Review)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie Sing the Stumps Down Good, by LaShawn M. Wanak (Fiyah)
Unplaces: An Atlas of Non-existence, by Izzy Wasserstein (Clarkesworld)
Small Things Pieced Together, by Ginger Weil (Robot Dinosaur Fiction)
Abigail Dreams of Weather, by Stu West (Uncanny)
Disconnect, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny)
Ruby, Singing, by Fran Wilde (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Sea Never Says It Loves You, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny)
In the End, It Always Turns Out the Same, by A.C. Wise (The Dark)
Fascism and Facsimiles, by John Wiswell (Fireside)
I’m going to do a comprehensive post of all my short fiction recs from 2018 later this week, but meanwhile here’s the year-end stuff.
The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls, by Senaa Ahmad (Strange Horizons)
The Feather Wall, by Octavia Cade (Reckoning 3)
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again, by Zen Cho (B&N SF)
Forest Spirits, by Michael J. Deluca (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Word of Flesh and Soul, by Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com)
Ten Things I Didn’t Do, by Maria Haskins (Pseudopod)
More Sea Than Tar, by Osahon Ize-Iyamu (Reckoning 3)
Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying, by Alice Sola Kim (Tin House)
The Thing About Ghost Stories, by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny)
Ava Paints the Horses, by Ville Meriläinen (Cast of Wonders
Birch Daughter, by Sara Norja (Fireside)
Don’t Pack Hope, by Emma Osborne (Nightmare)
An Aria for the Bloodlords, by Hannah Strom-Martin (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
My Name Is Cybernetic Model XR389F, and I Am Beautiful, by Monica Valentinelli (Uncanny)
Years are too big a thing for me to fit in one post, so expect the post about other people’s work later this week. This is just the stuff I published and how I feel about it.
Because the reprint of one of the print stories went live today, you have an internet copy available for you to read, hurrah! That’s Left to Take the Lead, originally in Analog and now appearing in Clarkesworld. Other Analog stories in 2018 included “The Jagged Bones of Sea-Saw Town,” “Finding Their Footing,” and “Two Point Three Children.” Of those, “Left to Take the Lead” and “Finding Their Footing” take place in the same universe, which they also share with several previous stories.
“The Jagged Bones of Sea-Saw Town” was one of the stories inspired by my 2016 trip to Sweden. Another was Objects in the Nobel Museum, 2075, which appeared in Daily Science Fiction. The stories inspired by this summer’s travel are just starting to come clear in my head, so it’ll be interesting to see where those go in the next few years.
The next cluster of stories was in Nature. They published Say It With Mastodons, Seven Point Two, and My Favorite Sentience. Usually Nature-length stories are my way of working out science fictional ideas without letting myself get sidetracked, and that was true here, but “Say It With Mastodons” was also an example of my recent musings about collaborative partnership/collaborative romance, and I’m very proud of it.
Uncanny Magazine was also a good home for my writing this year. I did more essays this year than I have in ages, and I liked doing it. Developing that nonfiction voice is definitely on my radar for next year. Work in Uncanny included the essays Hard Enough, The Seduction of Numbers, the Measure of Progress, and Malfunctioning Space Stations. They also published two of my short stories, Lines of Growth, Lines of Passage and This Will Not Happen to You.
“This Will Not Happen to You” was in their special Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction issue, and it was the second of my stories in 2018 that dealt with disability more directly and more personally than I’ve ever done before. The first was Flow, which found its home in Fireside Magazine. I am so grateful to them for every detail of that, for understanding that story and wanting to give it an outlet and for its beautiful commissioned illustration and all of it. “Flow” was personal. It was terrifying. And it was so very much worth doing.
What else has been going on with my writing in 2018? Well, I finished a novel whose provisional title is The Broken Compass, although I have a whole page of alternate titles in my notebook. (I’m pretty sure that’s a good title, but it remains to be seen whether it’s a good title for this book.) My astute and energetic beta readers and agent will help me continue to revise this thing, and meanwhile I’ve made a start on a new novel project as well.
I finished nine short stories–this is why I don’t write year-end posts in November, because two of those were in the last week of the year. I’ve also got several stories waiting in the wings to come out in the early months of 2019, and I’m writing more essays, as I said I would.
To tell the truth, I’m not that great at looking back on things I’ve done with pride. I’m working on that. This year has helped. But I’m much, much better at looking forward to things I’m going to learn to do better, and this year has helped with that even more. Excelsior.
Here’s my novelette from last summer’s issue of Analog, available in Clarkesworld: Left to Take the Lead. I’m so excited for this story to gain new readers, and I hope you enjoy. This is the one with tornadoes, family, trees, outer space…and a lot about how Earth people are so weird, because they are.
New story out this morning! Daily SF has published Objects in the Nobel Museum, 2075. Go, read, enjoy!
Today I have a story out in Nature, Say It With Mastodons. Once you’ve read that, you can also have a look at the blog post I wrote about the story behind the story. Hope you enjoy both!
The House on the Moon, William Alexander (Uncanny)
The Oracle and the Sea, Megan Arkenberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Psychopomps of Central London, Julia August (The Dark)
Mountaineering, Leah Bobet (Strange Horizons)
By the Hand That Casts It, Stephanie Charette (Shimmer)
Odontogenesis, Nino Cipri (Fireside)
Octopus, Martha Darr (Fiyah)
Court of Birth, Court of Strength, Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Stet, Sarah Gailey (Fireside)
A House by the Sea, P.H. Lee (Uncanny)
The Coin of Heart’s Desire, Yoon Ha Lee (Lightspeed)
The Foodie Federation’s Dinosaur Farm, Luo Longxiang (translated by Andy Dudak) (Clarkesworld)
Cerise Sky Memories, Wendy Nikel (Nature)
The Bodice, the Hem, the Woman, Death, Karen Osborne (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Court Magician, Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed)
Tamales in Space, and Other Phrases for the Beginning Speaker, Gabriela Santiago (Strange Horizons)
Spatiotemporal Discontinuity, Bogi Takács (Uncanny)
Abigail Dreams of Weather, Stu West (Uncanny)
Disconnect, Fran Wilde (Uncanny)
Ruby Singing, Fran Wilde (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
I recently sold my 150th story, which was a very nice feeling indeed and one I’ll explore more in my next newsletter. (I am trying to have somewhat non-overlapping content between my monthly newsletter and this blog. We’ll see how that goes.) But it was also a type of story I wanted to talk about more specifically here.
That is: it’s a story that was inspired by my trip to Finland and Sweden in 2016. It’s the fourth story in that category I’ve written and the fourth I’ve sold, and while it’s two years in the past, I’m pretty sure there are more coming. None of them are related to each other in any other way. Different speculative elements–different genres–different characters and settings. But I couldn’t have gotten to any of them from the same angle without traveling.
I didn’t plan any of them before we went. I just went and looked and listened and smelled and tasted and felt and thought and felt and thought and came home and read and felt and thought some more, and lo, there were some stories there.
I haven’t started on the stories inspired by the trip to Denmark and Iceland yet, but I know they’re there. (I even know the shape of at least two….)
People who don’t write, who are not frequently around writers except when I bring them around–people like my grandma–often think of travel for writing purposes as linear and planned. If I’m doing this trip for writing purposes, it must mean that I intend to set a book in one of the locations and am going to go give it a good hard squint and see what I get out of it. But…a few months ago I outlined a book inspired by these experiences, and it was just as unanticipated as the stories. And while I’m going to use the experience to revise an old book set in various parts of Finland, that’s not what I was there for–I didn’t know I’d ever get the right ideas to revise that book into something coherent.
It’s culturally much harder to say, “I’m going to write what I’m inspired to write.” We’re taught to look down on that kind of vague approach even within creative fields. Have a plan, be able to justify yourself, don’t just…be one of those irresponsible artists who flits around hoping for inspiration, ugh, what is that even. Well, I don’t hope for inspiration, I work for inspiration. I open doors and windows to inspiration, I leave out honey traps for inspiration, I sew gossamer nets to catch the very finest particles and smallest species of inspiration. And this only works if you’re not already convinced of where it isn’t.
Obviously this doesn’t mean that everyone has to travel to be open to new external input. Not everyone has the resources in whatever direction; sometimes I don’t have the resources. But I actually feel that making room for frivolity is essential. For books where you don’t know what chapter will help with your current project–or whether any chapters will help with any projects at all. For other people’s art, primarily as its own thing and only as a jumping-off point later if ever. For finding the road nearest your house that you’ve never been on and taking it and finding out whether there’s a bespoke foam merchant there, an antique shop, a greasy spoon, a park. For going to the free museum night to see an exhibit that has done the traveling for you. Not because you know how it’ll inspire you, but because you don’t.
I went to Montreal two weeks ago. I’ve been to Montreal many times. I love Montreal and have opinions about gelato available near different Metro stops. Vive Montreal. And even on this short trip, mostly full of conventions, I still discovered places I’ve never been, and I still looked at the places I have been and thought of them differently. Not in the “I must look into the Viau Metro and make sure I can put a story thing there” way. Just as: here I am, what else is here, who else. It makes me more able to do more of the same when I get home. I have no idea where it’ll end. And that’s an extremely good thing.
Next time I have a major trip–who knows when that will be–I will get asked whether I’m setting a book there, what book, why. I’m really happy that I don’t know.