2023 Year-end Post

I only had one piece out this year, which makes for a year-end post that is short and sweet.

Worlds pop into existence, composed by clicking keyboards or in spraying foam on waves of thought; tucked away in spells, algorithms, entangled particles, recipes; evoked by waving wands; sketched by twirling ley-line brushes; assembled by spinning quantum mundistructors. They’ve been doing it for eons.

But recently, there has been a pause.

“I’ve lost it,” he says to her, despondent. “I haven’t been able to make a new world in sixteen terakernels.”

“Same. I haven’t conjured one in ages.” The barest wisp …

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Norwescon!

I will be at Norwescon! Want to find me? Here’s my schedule:

Thursday, April 6

Time Travel and Historical Fiction

4:00pm – 5:00pm @ Evergreen 1 & 2

Frank Morin (M), Caroline M. Yoachim, Ellis Bray, David D. Levine

If you could travel back in time, where would you go? Time travel adds a slew of cultural complication to historical fiction. Consider Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. This panel discusses what makes such stories so intriguing.

Friday, April 7

Intersecting Art and Technology

11:00am – 12:00pm @ Evergreen 3 & 4

Wm …

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“Collaboration?” is in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 50!

New fiction out today! “Collaboration?” is a novelette I wrote with Ken Liu, and it is in Uncanny Magazine’s 50th issue!

Worlds pop into existence, composed by clicking keyboards or in spraying foam on waves of thought…

Writing this broke my brain in all the best ways. Working with Ken pushed me in directions I would not otherwise have gone, and we got to dig deep into the question of what collaboration really is. It was an absolute joy to write, and I am so excited to share it with you!

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2022 Year-End Post

I wasn’t going to write an end-of-year post this year, partly because I usually focus on new stories I’ve published… and this is a gap year for me with nothing new coming out. But despite that it was a good year for me, writing-wise:

  • Colors of the Immortal Palette” was a Hugo, Nebula, Ignyte, and Eugie Award finalist, and was included in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022. I am so very proud of that novelette, and I’m deeply grateful for all the honors and attention it got this year.
  • The science fiction awards database has (among …

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Worldcon Schedule!

If you will be at Chicon next month, come see me! Here’s my schedule:

Friday, Sept 2
10am – The Writing Workshop (Michigan 3)

Saturday, Sept 3
10am – Reading (Dusable)
1pm – Let Me Tell You About the Very Alien: They Are Different From You and Me (Grand Hall K)
4pm – Table Talk (Crystal Foyer)

Sunday, Sept 4
10am – Autographing

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Almond Cream Pie

I often post pictures of almond cream pie when I make it for Thanksgiving, and people sometimes ask for the recipe. So here it is! This is basically a recipe for the filling, because I use a store bought pie crust to save myself a little time :)

Ingredients:

1 pre-baked pie crust, cooled

Filling:

2/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup heavy cream

1.5 cup milk

4 egg yolks

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 …

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2021 Award Eligibility

I had one novelette out in 2021: “Colors of the Immortal Palette” (12,900 words) appeared in issue 39 of Uncanny Magazine.

“Colors of the Immortal Palette” combines so many things that I love–Sondheim musicals, impressionist art, and ukiyo-e prints, to name just a few of the inspirations. It is also deeply personal, an exploration of navigating the world of art from a marginalized perspective. Plus I realized that I’d never written a vampire story, and wanted to play with ideas about immortality, legacy, and time.

Here is a short excerpt from the beginning:

LEAD WHITE

I will always remember …

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New Fiction: “Colors of the Immortal Palette”

I have a new novelette out in Uncanny Magazine! “Colors of the Immortal Palette” is a story of art and identity, history and truth. It was a difficult story to write, and I’m really proud of how it came out. A short excerpt:

LEAD WHITE

I will always remember the view of Paris from his window. Snow, pure and untouched, softens the outline of the buildings and covers the grime of the streets. White, the color of beginnings. His canvas is primed and ready to be painted, and stark winter sunlight glows bright on his undead skin.

The studio …

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2020 Award Eligibility

I had one new novelette out in 2020: “Shadow Prisons,” which originally appeared in three parts in The Dystopia Triptych (eds. John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant).

The novelette is available online (serialized in three parts) at Lightspeed Magazine:

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/series/shadow-prisons/

Here’s an excerpt from Part 1: The Shadow Prison Experiment

The shopping district was crowded on a Sunday afternoon, and Vivian Watanabe was out running errands with her sixteen-year-old, Cass. Together they wove through throngs of shoppers wearing customized skins or the generic default. Vivian wasn’t fond of Generics—they fell into that uncanny valley between a …

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New fiction: “Shadow Prisons”

I haven’t been very good about updating this blog, but I had some new fiction out June 30th!! “Shadow Prisons” is a novelette in three parts, appearing in The Dystopia Triptych (eds. John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant):

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