Updates: summer and Best Science Fiction of the Year anthology out now!


It’s been busy—hosting family from out of town, little cousins running shrieking through the house while their big cousins (my daughters) try to keep up. Fights and tears and laughter. Bubbles and water gun fights and Fourth of July sparklers in the driveway. A beach trip and dim sum and cakes and talking talking talking around the dining table.

In the midst of it all, this book came out: Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 4. My story, “Traces of Us,” first published in the online magazine GigaNotoSaurus, is reprinted in this anthology. It’s an honor I never would have dreamed of.

Jeff Somers at the Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog listed this anthology as one of the best science fiction and fantasy books of July 2019. He had this to say:

“If you’re going to trust one editor to pick the best science fiction and fantasy stories of the year, Neil Clarke is a good bet—in addition to his shepherding of award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, he’d assembled a bookshelf’s worth of fantastic themed and annual anthologies. Here he has collected 29 standouts from 2018 into a must-have book for any serious fan of short SFF. . . It’s an essential snapshot of what’s happening in sci-fi and fantasy fiction right now.”


I appear in this book alongside my absolute writing HEROES—Ken Liu, Aliette de Bodard, Sofia Samatar, Alyssa Wong, Lavie Tidhar, and more. It’s a table of contents to make one swoon.

And it's all real; I'm in it. I have my contributor's copy. And last weekend, while my youngest sister was still in town, she and I went to the mall and then stopped off at the local Barnes and Noble and we tracked the book down on the store shelf.
























 And here is me posed with my book. 




This is the first time I've ever been published in a book that actually appears on store shelves (Barnes and Noble, no less!). So yes, I think it deserves a picture =)

                                                                 * * *

In other news, I have two short stories coming out in online venues next month, and I am trying to write. The writing is not coming easily, but I'm trying to have faith that, if I keep at it, the words will eventually flow. And it's summer in Michigan: the wild mulberries near our home are ripe, and the raspberries are ripening. The wild field nearby blooms with the purple globes of milkweed plants, and with purple vetch, Queen Anne's lace, thistles, and pink sweet pea. Monarch butterflies are here. I'm trying to cook new things in the kitchen. I'm reading and (trying to) write, and (trying to) remember to breathe, to relax, to enjoy these sunlit days.  
NOTE: if you'd like some background/science notes on my story, "Traces of Us," you can find them in my prior blog post here. 

 Also, I did a podcast with Full Worlds where I also discussed some of the science behind my story. You can give a listen here. 

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