Month: December 2018

Wow, 2017 was very kind to my work.

The Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler anthology by Twelfth Planet Press was released, and to help generate publicity for it, my contribution, the essay “The Butler Effect”, was reprinted on OkayAfrica.com.

Short story “The Faerie Tree” and novelette “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” were also published, in Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines, respectively. “The Faerie Tree” then appeared on Lightspeed’s most excellent podcast, and was featured via Lightspeed Presents on iO9. They were given kind reviews and seemed well-received.

In 2018, a number of awesome things happened as a result of those publications:

• Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler was nominated for a 2018 Hugo Award
• “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” was listed on SFWA’s 2017 Recommended Reading List
• “The Faerie Tree” (Short Stories), “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” (Novelettes), and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler (Non-Fiction) were all included on Locus’s 2017 Recommended Reading List
• “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” was nominated for a 2017 Shirley Jackson Award in the Novelette category, and was a preliminary nominee in the 2018 Nommo Awards for African Speculative Fiction in the Short Story category
• “The Faerie Tree” was reprinted in the anthology The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 12
• “You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych” was reprinted in anthologies The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 and Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 5

So, uh, yeah. Writing-wise, 2018 was a very good year, and while I didn’t anticipate any of it, it’s thrilling that it happened, and I’m supremely grateful to all the readers and editors and awards committees who made it happen.

Attending conventions this year (WisCon, ReaderCon, and Archon) was especially cool, since I got to meet people whose work I love who’d also enjoyed my stuff. Someday I hope to be less of an awkward turtle when this happens, but I think it’s okay, seeing as I’m a writer and we’re generally a strange but friendly bunch?

Speaking of which: the speculative fiction community is full of awesome people who do awesome work, and are kind and supportive, and seek to foster community and help ease the way for up-and-coming authors in the industry. For anyone considering dipping your toes into the speculative fiction pool, know there is a community waiting for you: one that wants you to succeed, needs to hear your voice, and eagerly anticipates reading the truth of your unique experiences, albeit told slant.

Your stories are worth telling. Don’t keep us waiting.