Tag: publishing

I’ve mentioned here before that one of my big projects this year is my involvement with The Vertigo Project, which now has a webpage so the rest of you can see what we’ve been doing. Earlier today I facilitated the first creative therapy-style writing workshop through that group, and it was really lovely–and is just the tip of the iceberg on what this group is doing.

Specifically, you can now read all the new work they’ve commissioned from me! Friends, it’s a lot. It’s journaling prompts for people who would like to use writing to process some of their own vertigo experiences. But also it’s the following stories and poems:

Advice for Wormhole Travelers (story), safe conduct through strange new worlds

Club Planet Vertigo (poem), this is not the dance I wanted to do

Greetings from Innerspace (poem), my orbits are eccentric

The Nature of Nemesis (poem), me and Clark Kent know what’s what

On the Way Down (poem), falling hard

Preparation (poem), sometimes we’re just literal, okay

She Wavers But She Does Not Weaken (story), when the waves hit you even on dry land, it’s good to have someone who’s willing to swim against the current for you

The Torn Map (story), rewriting the pieces of the former world into something new

The main page also has links to some of the other aspects of the project, which includes a nonfiction book, dance, puppetry, a podcast with a physical therapist, and more. Please feel welcome to explore it all.

I haven’t seen the copies of my new story in Analog (Nov/Dec 2025), but apparently other people have, so: “And Every Galatea Shaped Anew” is out in the world, ready to read if you can find it. It’s the story of a technological boost–or is it a detriment?–to our most personal relationships….

Analog has been purchased by Must Read Magazines, and while some of us are managing to wrestle their contracts into shapes we’re willing to sign, it’s a new fight every time. I have another story with an acceptance letter from them, but at the moment I’m not submitting more. That makes me sad; I have liked working with Trevor Quachri since he became editor, and I liked working with Stan Schmidt before him. Analog was one of my BIG SHINY CAREER MILESTONES: that I could sell to one of the big print mags! And then that I could do it AGAIN! It’s been literally over 20 years of working together, and now this. Trevor was not in charge of contracts at Dell Magazines, and he’s not in charge of contracts at MRM. This is not his fault. I would like to keep being able to work with him and with Analog. (And with Sheila at Asimov’s, and with Sheree at F&SF! Not their fault either! These are all editors I like and value, and one of the things that upsets me here is that they’re in the middle of all this.) But the more MRM gets author feedback about best practices and refuses to take it on board, the less I feel like it’s a good idea for me as an established writer to give the new writers the idea that this is an acceptable state of things.

So yeah, having this story come out is bittersweet, and I’m having a hard time enthusing about it the way I did about my previous publications in Analog–or my other previous publication this week. Maybe go read that, I’m really proud of it–and I feel good about the idea that newer writers will see my name in BCS and think it’s a good place for authors to be, too. There are lots of magazines in this field that treat their authors with basic professional decency as a default, not as something you have to fight them for. I have kept hoping that MRM will rejoin them. There’s still time.

My crow story is out today in Beneath Ceaseless Skies! The Crow’s Second Tale is what happens when you mull over crow-related song and story a bit too long, or maybe just long enough. If you need or prefer a podcast version, that’s available too, narrated by the amazing Tina Connolly. Hope you enjoy either way.

(I had originally written “a murder for” a particular abstract noun, but you know what, I don’t want to spoil what abstract noun it was, go read if you want to know!)

New story! What a Big Heart You Have is out in Kaleidotrope. The more I thought about the Red Riding Hood story, the more I thought that the grandmother/granddaughter relationship was pretty sketched-in…and it’s been one of the most important ones in my life. Hope you enjoy.

In May the subscribers of If There’s Anyone Left got to read my short story, The Things You Know, The Things You Trust. Now it’s free to read online! Go, read, enjoy!

Good news, fellow humans! My short story A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places, which appeared last year in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, is a finalist for the WSFA Small Press Award for short fiction.

I am seriously chuffed about this for a number of reasons. One, you know how everyone always says it’s an honor just to be a finalist? You know why they say that? Because it is in fact an honor just to be a finalist. So many wonderful stories come out in this field every year that–well, you’ve seen my yearly recommendation lists. They’re quite long. Winnowing them to any smaller group? Amazing, thank you, could easily have been a number of other highly qualified stories by wonderful writers, I am literally just glad to be on the team and hope I can help the ball club. Er, programming staff.

But here’s another reason: if you’ve read that story–which you can do! please do! it’s free, and it turns out people like it!–you will immediately see that it is a story about a disabled person. That disabled person is not me, does not have my family or my career or anything like that. But it is my disability. I put my own disability into this story. I gave someone with my disability a story in which they do not have to be “fixed” to be the hero. And…this is not a disability-focused award. This is just an award for genre short fiction. So I particularly appreciate that the people who were selecting stories looked a story with a disabled protagonist whose disability is inherent to the story without being the problem that needs solving and said, yeah, we appreciate that. Thank you. I appreciate you too.

New story out today in Clarkesworld: A Shaky Bridge ! This one is more directly referential to current events than most of my science fiction, while also drawing on my experience with my dad having strokes. So this is not the most happy-clappy upbeat story I’ve ever written…but it is one that I feel good about having out there, and I hope you’ll like it too.

New story out today! Things I Miss About Civilization appears in Nature Futures. Just a scientist, a slightly broken spaceship, and the great expanse between galaxies….