It’s hard to believe the year is already almost over. As it was flying by, it didn’t feel like I’d managed to do all that much, but looking back, I did actually have several things published this year. Here’s what I did, and the categories in which each is eligible for various awards.
Short Fiction
Seven Times Seven (published in Kaleidotrope, January 2022)
The cusp of twilight is blue, bruised grey, then red where a lit sign like a fresh wound shines against the dark. Jax slows the car, easing into a wide lot with trucks parked to one side, gas pumps in the middle, and a long, low building that is not a diner, or a convenience store, or anything discernable on the other side. They climb out of the car, hissing a sharp breath of pain as they do. They’re bleeding.
Crick Crack Rattle Tap (published in Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, June 2022)
The wail comes like tiny, scratching fingernails prying Kiersten’s eyelids wide. She knocks her phone to the ground trying to grab it to read the time – 12:47 a.m. – and once she sits up to retrieve it, there’s no point crawling back under the covers, hoping the baby will stop.
The Archive of Birds (published in Solarpunk Magazine, Spring/Summer 2022)
I finally made it, May, the Valley of Kings. It’s incredible – just the way I pictured it from your stories, or my mother’s version of your stories, rather, the ones Grandma Millie told her when she was young. All the crystal towers, the flooded streets. It’s only a few blocks away from the enclave, from home, but it feels like a different world.
Sharp Things, Killing Things (published in Nightmare Magazine, October 2022)
We saw the first billboard while driving along Lake Road. We’d driven the road a hundred times before, because it was the only road out of town that went anywhere worth going, and there was fuck-all to do in town except get drunk, get stoned, and get in trouble.
Wind Come Down the Mountain (published in The Dark, November 2022)
“The sky gets inside you. It’s so big, there’s so much of it, it fills up everything. The wind and trees get into your head. They make you hear things, see things, think things. All of it hollows you out until there’s nothing left and then you aren’t there anymore. You’re gone.”
The Lightning Seller Visits Greenvale (published in The Sunday Morning Transport, November 2022)
David sniffed the air. He could smell it. He could feel it, too, the ozone-crackle of blue-tinted light calling out to him and making the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And not just lightning, but captured storms of all kinds, each one unique. If you had one of those in your hands, boy, just think what you could do.
Novelette
Into the Green (published in Looming Low Volume II, November/December 2022)
The trees click and hum then immediately go shhhhh, correcting themselves for giving a secret away. Rose squints as Nate kills the engine and the boat makes a hollow tocking sound against the dock. Even with her eyes shaded, it’s a moment before Rose can see the island properly. And then there’s not much to see. Only the green.
Novel
Hooked (published by Titan Books, July 2022)
And yet… It is nothing to summon the feel of the deck rolling beneath his feet, the creak and sigh of the ropes and the snap of sails. Neverland – he admits to the name at last; it is always there, and Hook is always there, just beneath the surface. At times, he never left, never fled and fell through the world.
