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Award-eligible works in 2023
This year, I have a number of stories eligible for various awards, including a couple of late bloomers that'll be available to read starting December. It's been a year of interrogation, surrender, incredible uncertainty, and startling abundance. Highlights include graduating from my MFA program, finishing my second full-length book project and starting a third, making my debut in several dream journals, having "Beginnings" anthologized in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction (whoa), surviving my fourth cross-country move (...whoa), traveling to SF for a week of overdue catch-ups and readings, and making treasured new friends along the way. Lowlights? Have those, too, but you'll have to ask. So many brilliant, gutsy writers out there—I'm lucky to be living and working among them. Hope you vote for and shout loud about what you love, and should any of the below stories stick with you, I'd be honored if you gave it a recommendation.
"The Dizzy Room" | Nightmare, March 2023
The new kid in school, Uly, discovers a diabolical presence in the depths of an English-language-learning CD-ROM. Like many tools of assimilation, it dangles before her acceptance and belonging—but will it hold up its end of the bargain? (7,350 words)
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Book Riot's "Halloween Short Fiction: 9 Short Stories to Get You Ready for Spooky Season"
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Eugenia's Triantafyllou's "An Incomplete List of Beautiful Stories 2023"
"Last Letter First" | Luna Station Quarterly, June 2023
In an airbus headed for the Nova satellite colony, Duri and Margosha play a road-trip game to pass the time. What they hope to find, and what actually awaits them, speaks to questions of bodily autonomy and regulation closer to home. (4,855 words)
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SFF Reviews
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Eugenia's Triantafyllou's "An Incomplete List of Beautiful Stories 2023"
"Approved Methods of Love Divination in the First-Rate City of Dushagorod" | The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2023
In the wake of a devastating war, a declining empire attempts to weaponize matchmaking using an elaborate system built around cootie catchers and soda-can tabs. A group of women refuse to obey. (7,256 words)
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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction in Locus Magazine
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Marissa Lingen's Favorite Short Work of 2023
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Nerds of a Feather's 2024 Hugo Award Recommendation List
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Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards shortlist
"The Curing" | Uncanny, Sept. 2023
In one American middle school, a thrown-together clique of immigrant kids feel the simultaneous pressures to make more and less of themselves. Then, they discover the amazing replicating powers of Elmer's glue. (8,049 words; novelette)
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Goodreads
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#4 in Uncanny's Favorite Fiction Reader Poll
"ADJECTIVE" | McSweeney's, Dec. 2023
A mad-libs-style story exploring the struggle for self-definition amid workplace microaggression. (2,578 words)
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Winner of the inaugural McSweeney's Stephen Dixon Award for Short Fiction
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John Wiswell's Big Recommended Short Story Reading List for 2023
"Concrete People" | JMWW, Dec. 2023
While waiting in line for a limited-release beer, Brin is haunted by the long history of shortages and scarcity in her ancestral home. (1,416 words)
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