Yes, I’m still alive. And yes, I’m still really, really bad at updating this site.
Truthfully, I haven’t done a whole lot of writing in the past year or so (I’ve been devoting much more time to my two favorite hobbies: procrastinating and not writing), but despite that, I do still have a few announcements to make.
First, let’s start with recent* publications.
- “Tessa and the Troll,” a flash-fiction story I originally wrote for a Codex Writers’ Group contest, has been published in Galaxy’s Edge #28.
- “Tyler the Snot Elemental Scours the Newspaper, Searching for Change” has been published in Unidentified Funny Objects 6, making for my fourth appearance in the UFO anthology series.
- “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Ash” has been published in Flame Tree Publishing’s positively gorgeous Endless Apocalypse anthology.
4. “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” has been published in The Binge-Watching Cure, an anthology of stories that grow progressively longer as the book goes on, to ease audiences into the habit of reading. (And, ideally, cure them of their binge-watching afflictions.) As an interesting side-note, “Marathon Mandy” is my all-time most rejected story, garnering 23 rejections before it finally found the right editor.
And now, some other news:
“The Black Clover Equation” has been translated by Marcheto, who operates the Spanish fiction-translation blog Cuentos Para Algernon. Five of Marcheto’s translations have been nominated for the Ignotus Award (which she tells me is, essentially, the Spanish version of the Hugo–quite possibly the highest honor in science fiction), and I was thrilled that she wanted to translate my story when she has an entire world of SF/F to choose from.
Followers of this site (imaginary though you may be) might recall that “The Black Clover Equation” is a story I wrote in 2012, submitted once, and forgot about for the next 4-5 years, thinking it wasn’t very good. With that in mind, let’s look at all the things that have happened with my “not very good” story since its publication in Flash Fiction Online about a year and a half ago:
- It’s been translated into Spanish for a successful SF/F fiction blog.
- It was, apparently, discussed at a Nebula Conference panel on flash fiction. (Believe me, no one was more surprised–and thrilled–than I was to learn about this news.)
- It made the Tangent Online 2017 recommended reading list, with a 2-star rating–the highest rating I’ve ever received from Tangent. (And, on that note, “The Woman With the Long Black Hair,” from the May/June 2017 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, made the list as well, albeit without any bonus stars.)
- It was used to teach a course on short fiction at a university in Waxahachie, Texas. (The instructor contacted and interviewed me, and shared the story with her class.)
Not bad, for a story I’d relegated to the depths of my trunk. Kind of makes me wonder what other treasures might be buried in there, under the piles and piles of failed fiction experiments . . .
Anyway, the last announcement I have to make is a new story sale: “Three Ways to Leave Hawaii” will appear in Alex Shvartsman’s Unidentified Funny Objects 7. This is the longest story I’ve ever sold at a professional pay-rate–it’ll be about 20 pages in the book, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out.
And . . . I think that’s it. It’s entirely possible I’ve forgotten to list something significant that happened in the past year, but if I do come up with any such news, I’ll be sure to announce it in my next post, slated for a December 2027 release.
-Z
*Relatively speaking, of course.