The cover for Longer Worlds looks really good! My story “Karma Is Dead” will be in here, and I’m told the release will probably be sometime in February 2027.

I’m excited to say my short story–more accurately, novella–“Karma Is Dead” has been selected for publication in the Longer Worlds anthology by Lightning Cellar. Announcements will be made when there are dates to know and links to click!

“Karma” had a strange ride getting out into the world. I did something I rarely do: I started a short story and finished it much later. (And of course, since it’s me, the story ended up at around 20,000 words. It slimmed down to about 19,000 to go on submission to publishers.) I started writing it during a vacation and completing it more than a year later. It ran away from me a little, and though the basic idea of the story was always there (including the ending), the actual storytelling was quite different than my original conception. I love when that happens and I feel like I’m discovering a person and a place.

Since it’s enormous and typical short story publishers will not touch 19k, I was left with either very specific submissions calls or book publishers.

I submitted it around, and first I got interest from a publisher who kept writing me back asking for more information. Can I send the draft in another format? Can I provide a bio? And then they ghosted me after acting interested. The next publisher who was interested is the one I ended up signing with. They liked the story but couldn’t commit to having me in the anthology for sure, and asked to hold the story for consideration. This is common enough, but sometimes publishers want exclusivity at this point, and this publisher was kind enough to say I could continue to shop it around since they couldn’t commit yet. Very nice of them.

And then I did end up getting a THIRD response from a publisher who also wanted to hold it for consideration! Their issue was being primarily a book publisher and they were honest with me saying they weren’t sure what they’d do with a story my size. (Ironically, because it was SHORTER than what they usually deal with it.) They asked if they could hold it while they figured out what kind of offer they could give me. I gave them full disclosure saying another publisher had also put it on hold. They were fine with that.

But then I got the offer on October 1, 2026, and after checking with the other publisher who still wasn’t ready to offer me anything (but hopes I’ll show them some future projects!), I signed with Lightning Cellar for the Longer Worlds anthology.

(It did also get one really weird rejection saying I should send it to a different specific publisher, and that publisher ONLY works with fanfiction authors. I guess they assumed I am a fanfiction author because my character is?)

Short pitch:

Karma Is Dead features a young woman who’s been on her own since surviving a mass extinction, but she believes she died in the plague and identifies as a ghost. When she meets Brianne after more than two years of being alone, their mutual attraction and desperation for company brings them together, but there’s a catch: neither of them can speak, and one of them is dead. Their relationship begins in handwritten letters as they live in the same house, but as Brianne brings Karma into her life of haphazard errands and backyard farming, she needs definition for Karma’s supposed afterlife. She deserves the truth if she’s supposed to date the undead. They adopt a quest to find the story of Karma’s true end, which eventually reconnects her with forgotten elements of her past–some of which she’s grateful to have back; some of which are extremely nerdy secrets that Brianne might judge her for. But when Karma unearths Brianne’s own dark secret–which is bizarrely connected to her own–she finds herself judging when she expected to be judged. Is this an irreconcilable difference, or are they more alike than they thought?

It happened again! This is the third time I’ve sent a story out sight unseen and had it accepted with no rejections. And wow that was fast. I only finished this story on March 18 and less than a month later it has a home.

“For the Record” found a friendly ear with the editor of Overtime, a publication that specifically focuses on stories about work. The main conflict surrounds an administrative professional who has left her job in the protagonist’s capable hands, but can’t seem to let go of control. They have an epic battle–okay, a discussion or two–about filing systems and the importance of archives. I’m always surprised by which of my stories sell quickly and which take a long time.

Also, I’m pleased that this is a very casually queer story. Both main characters are lesbians, but there isn’t much focus on their relationship. I like an opportunity to have incidental queerness. People existing who just happen to be gay but the story isn’t about them being gay.

This story will run in the November 2026 issue of Overtime.

I got a new offer to publish my short story “Aquarius.”

I wrote the story in 2015. It was previously accepted by Aurelius Leo but the publisher’s plans fell through. The story is on the longer side, so it’s already pretty tough to place with traditional short story publishers, but on top of that it got hung up in publishing limbo for so long after plans didn’t materialize that I was pretty bummed to still be trying to place the story in 2025. I submitted it to an anthology project that’s specifically for aromantic main characters, though I wasn’t explicitly looking for anything like that. And this time, it found what I hope is its permanent home.

The Common Bonds anthology project has accepted “Aquarius” and plans to put the story in its Volume 3 anthology. (It will be a while since Volume 2 isn’t even out.) News as it develops.

I wrote a short story called “Aquarius” in 2015. You can see some of my thoughts on developing the story and its journey in a previous blog post. But what I can say on the story since then is that I’ve thought for a long time that this was one of my best short stories. My mom even liked it, and my mom doesn’t like science fiction.

Evidently, the publishers didn’t agree with my assessment. Or my mom’s. Because I couldn’t seem to find a home for it.

I’ll admit one thing: I’m picky about selling short stories. I don’t like to sell them to unstable markets, so I generally only pitch to publications that offer compensation beyond a free copy. So with that and the fact that the story is on the longer side, maybe the odds just weren’t on my side for selling “Aquarius.”

Or, more likely, I just lack the capacity to be objective about which of my stories are any good.

But right after I sold a story I didn’t think I liked very much to the first place I offered it to, this story sold next. I got an acceptance on September 29, 2022.

Why didn’t I post about it then? Because I didn’t know any terms and there was no communication about the story for a long time after that, so I didn’t want to make an announcement and then find out it wasn’t actually going to be a thing. I don’t like to spread news when I don’t really HAVE the news.

But as of today, I did get my contract and the release terms. I can now tell you that after a long streak of years, my (probably) second-queerest short story will finally be published in November 2023.

Aurelia Leo bought the story for their 18th PRIDE anthology. A placeholder purchase link is up, and it has a cover.