One month after my first professionally published story, “Our Fate, Told in Photons” appeared in Clarkesworld, I’m celebrating another publication, this time in Diabolical Plots.
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“Our Fate, Told in Photons” Is Out Now in Clarkesworld
Six years ago, I published a chapter from an unfinished fantasy novel in my alma mater’s student literary journal. It won the University’s Best in Fiction award that year. Today, I made my debut as a professional fiction author.
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Life Before the Pandemic: Thanks for the Memories, Even If They Weren’t So Great
A long time ago, in a world full of T-Mobile Sidekicks and Chuck Taylor All-Stars, I used to be a scene kid. I never had the disposable income to follow bands around the country, but I saw a respectable number of shows each year between 2005 and 2012. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life before the pandemic, especially the kind of gritty, dive-bar experiences I fear are gone for good.
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A Chronically Ill Writer Measures Out Her Life in Spoons
Three times a day, I retrieved a handful of pills from the little blue basket on the kitchen counter. It was 2017, and I was two years into my career as a chronically ill writer. In the eight years after my Behçet’s Disease diagnosis, I’d had plenty of time to rage, cry, and contemplate my situation—how my chronic illness impacted my life, how many medications I needed to be able to live with minimal pain, how I rationed my spoons each week. What I neglected to realize was how obvious my condition was to other people.
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Becoming a Working Writer: The First, Terrible Year in Review
In October 2019, I took the plunge. I made my first short-story submission to a paying market. The rejection came twelve days later. It was a higher tier rejection—the best kind, short of one bearing a personal note from the editor. I felt energized. I was—to steal Mur Lafferty’s phrasing—a working writer.
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