2021 awards eligibility post

It’s my first time ever doing an SF/F awards eligibility post!

So, I actually haven’t published a lot this year— a handful of poems and a short story was all I had out in 2021. But I’ve been busy revising my novel and preparing to dive into the agent-querying trenches (YIKES!) over the past year, as well as drafting two? three? other novels, working on a couple of plays, drafting and revising other new short stories, dayjobbing, and trying to keep from falling apart two years into a global pandemic (which is fun, as can be expected).

Here’s a list of publications I have out in the world in 2021. I would be very honored if any of them are considered for any SFF award for this year— and a huge shoutout to all the lovely editors who accepted my work for publication, as well as the betareaders who gave lovely critiques and feedback on my work!:

POETRY

• “Two Reports from a Falling City” - in The Deadlands issue #5, September 2021

  • written in late-2019, a musing on helicopter journalism, survival, and how narratives on totalitarianism unfold.

• “träumerai” - in Apparition Literary issue #15, July 2021

  • written in early 2021. this one deals with the threads of personal/family/colletive memory, and the way it fractures under the weight of precarious futures.

• “bargain | bin” - in Uncanny issue #38

  • this was also written in late-2019. this one is about… anger at the gods, being caught in the crosshairs of history, and legacies. fun stuff.

FICTION

• “Before We Drown” - in Fusion Fragment issue #9

  • scifantasy (?), 3,000~ words, with a nonbinary MC and a queer relationship if you squint.

  • this was actually written in 2017? 2018? (time is a flat circle!) and was the story that got me accepted into Clarion West 2018. it feels odd to read this piece again when the way I engage with fiction and writing has changed a lot, and my craft has certainly improved since then (I hope), but I have a special fondness for this piece tbh. it’s about the stories we leave behind, messy relationships, censorship, and dissent. again, fun stuff.

  • reviewed by Charles Payseur in Quick Sip Reviews!: “It’s a grim read, heavy and obliterating, btu it’s also resilient and stubborn, sharply examining what it is to live in a rigged system, where rebellions are undermined and coopted as quickly as they’re conceived. A great read!”

That’s all for now. Have a wonderful new year, folks, and I’ll see you all in 2022!