2024 Year In Review
I’m not the most prolific fiction writer, but I had a really good year. I finished the same number of stories as in 2023 (5 short stories and 1 novelette written in 2024 vs 6 stories written in 2023), and I had about the same number of submissions (122 vs 119), but I doubled my acceptances (8 vs 4).
I’m really proud of the stories below, and most are free to read! In reverse chronological order (SF = sci-fi, H = horror)…
“A Slightly Different Sunrise from Mercury, Nevada”
(SF) in STRANGE HORIZONS
After the “Great Privatization” of the 2060s, the Nevada Test Site has been transformed into a time-travel tourist attraction where the wealthy can watch nuclear bombs explode in 1952…
CLICK HERE TO READ FOR FREE
This story was featured in Recommended Reading Lists from Alex Brown at Reactor.com (Tor) and Maria Haskins, and reviewed at Tangent Online
“The Beach House with Its Back to the Sea”
(H) in THE OFF-SEASON: AN ANTHOLOGY OF COASTAL NEW WEIRD
The grandson of a late director with occult leanings films a dramatic reenactment gone wrong, on the isolated Lost Coast of northern California…
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“RoxysMakeupMoxy6 Gets Real”
(SF) in FLASH POINT SF
Roxy doesn’t have much to offer at the end of the world. But not much doesn’t mean nothing…
CLICK HERE TO READ FOR FREE
This story was featured in Myna Chang’s Recommended Reading List.
“Covenants, Conditions, & Restrictions”
(SF) in FUSION FRAGMENT
The world is on fire, but Homeowners Association Newsletters can not be stopped… CLICK HERE TO READ (pay what you want or free)
“Zero Zero”
(H) in KING LUDD’S RAG
It’s New Year’s Eve 1999 at a punk rock squat that might be haunted, and some weird shit is about to go down…
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“Anachronisms”
(SF/H) in RATTUS FUTURA
This near-future story was originally published in COSMIC HORROR MONTHLY and features unknowable gods, old and new…
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“Walls Become Webs”
(H) in TREMBLING WITH FEAR
My first attempt at writing a drabble (a wee story of exactly 100 words)…
CLICK HERE TO READ FOR FREE
My year at a glance, in numbers:
- 7 paid acceptances (vs 4 last year) + 1 unpaid acceptance
- first query acceptance for a longer work (to the first place I sent it to!)
- SFWA-rate pro sales to Strange Horizons and Reckoning
- first stories included in a themed anthology
- first reprint published (Rattus Futura)
- first stories reviewed and included in recommended reading lists
- 122 story submissions (vs 119 last year)
- finally broke 100 rejections (last year was 99, so close!). Competing in a rejection contest made this more fun this year.
Kicking and Screaming Into the Future…
In 2025, my first novelette will be published in March as part of the Split Scream series at Tenebrous Press (more info COMING SOON!) And so far, I have short stories forthcoming in Reckoning (pre-order now!) and Chthonic Matter Quarterly (winter issue). And I’ll probably be writing less shorts because I hope to focus my writing time on a sci-fi horror novella I started in 2024 (fingers crossed)…
