What I've been up to:

I completed the Writer's Workout, a 6-week-long writing competition where you are given a prompt on a Friday, and you have 72 hours to write a short story based on the prompt. All entries are given feedback by a panel of judges, and it's an excellent way to rapidly strengthen your short story game. One of my stories took second place, and another got an honorable mention.

Now that the competition is over, it's back to working on all of my other original projects!

And also kayaking when I have the time:

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What I'm working on:

I haven't figured out yet the balance between not wanting to share too much about WIPs in public, and wanting to share just enough about them to drum up interest. For now, I think I'll share as much in this newsletter as I do on Twitter:

1. Short stories: My main focus this year is short stories. My original goal was to send out 50 submissions this year, and I'm at 41 as of writing this. But I'm also only 14 submissions away from 200 lifetime short story submissions, so I think I'm going to aim for that as a new goal. I have 3 stories already slated for release this year (see below for more info), and a lot that are pending responses from different markets.
2. Books: As ever, I am juggling multiple book projects at once. You'll have seen me talk on Twitter about: the rock band that goes on a heist in space; the undead bounty hunter; the gaslamp fantasy that takes place in an alternate Chicago; the salvage crew that makes a horrific discovery on a shipwreck in space; and the human diplomat who goes on the run with an alien prince and a baby. Some of those I'm still drafting; others are at the revision stage thanks to the army of alpha and beta readers who knock it out of the park every time I send them something. Whether it's through self pub or trad pub, I hope to share all those books someday.

The Latest:

Latest Listen:

​The Penumbra Podcast is in its final season, and while I'm thoroughly enjoying all the episodes, I'm already in mourning for the impending finale. This podcast has been part of my life since 2016, and I'm going to miss this nonbinary Martian detective and the thief that he loves. If you like fiction podcasts and you want more stories about gays in space, this is one to definitely check out.

Speaking of gays in space, I also finally finished season 5 of EOS10 (a year after its release, oops). This one feels like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, except everyone gets to be canonically queer and the main character falls in love with a space pirate. It's another excellent fiction podcast to check out.

Latest Read:

​How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures is part memoir and part crash course in marine biology. It's beautifully written and will stick with me for a long time.

Latest Watch:

​The Boyfriend on Netflix. I'm not one for reality dating shows, but for some reason this one sucked me in and I binged the whole thing in one sitting.

What's Next:

I have 3 short stories coming out in 2024!

I made you wait until the end of the newsletter to see this news :)

• "Proprietary Technology" will be published in Issue 8 of Radon Journal, currently scheduled for September 2024.
• "Safe Harbor" won second place in the second event of the Writer's Workout, and will be published in the anthology 72 Hours.
• "Two Earthlings" won second place in TL;DR Press's 1K Word Herd challenge, and will be published in that anthology.

Another newsletter will go out when those stories are released, and links will be added to the publication page on my website.