First, really quickly, the newsletter has officially moved to Beehiiv! This is the archive link. The old ButtonDown archive will still remain, but since it was only 4 posts, I think moving will be relatively painless.

Okay now onto the flailing.

“Emotional Resonance” in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024!

MY GIANT GAY ROBOTS ARE IN PRINT AND IN BOOKSTORES. I found a copy in the wild at my local Barnes & Noble. Did I cry? Not in the store, no. But later? Yes.

Since I have been bad at giving a simple summary of this story, let me try here. “Emotional Resonance” is about two queer people who have been turned into giant mecha MINDs. They find each other, fall in love, and try to exist under capitalism together, or escape it. In the end? I like to think they succeed in that. There’s a lot of personal gender and belonging feelings of mine baked into the story. For that one to be the one that makes it into bookstores? It’s special, it’s emotional(ly resonant). I don’t know that I’ll ever fully be able to express what it means to me, given what I’ve been through.

To order a copy of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024, go here. There are so many amazing writers in this anthology, please go read the whole thing. Every single story is wonderful.

Why this means so much to me

But why do I keep referencing things cryptically about my life experiences? Well, I mentioned this on my writing TikTok a little bit, and on my blog on my website too if you’d prefer a text version, but to sum up: this is a huge deal. It is for any writer, to get their words in print and seen in stores.

But for me in particular, and my specific journey to this point in my life: I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was eleven. Very specifically, I knew after writing my first original fiction in pink glitter gel pen, in a small wide ruled notebook inspired from scribbling questionable Inuyasha fanfic. It's been the one constant (and yes, I keep using that exact phrasing everywhere because I have no other way to explain).

Now for some unfun medical mentions (feel free to skip to the next paragraph if this is too much, totally understand). I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma two years later. After six months of an intense but proven regimen, I was in remission and a teen full of trauma no one in the early 2000s commonly knew to help with (I hope, and have heard, it’s much better these days). Later in my 20s, I developed ovarian cancer too (that fortunately only required surgery). Thankfully, everything is still in remission now. My health is in a good place at the moment. I hope it stays that way! But the nature of chronic medical things is to never know when something new might manifest or break. But I do hope I’m able to have a few more medical-complication-free years.

Throughout all that, the one thing I knew was that I wanted to make it as a writer. I clung to that like a life raft, like Jack could’ve done if Rose had let him in Titanic, I’m just saying. All I knew some days was that I just needed to make it to that goal. Everything else felt broken, scary, impossible. Except for that goal, I just had to make it to that point.

Now I have. Three simple words, powerful, brings me to tears every time. Now I have.

Where I’m going from here

I now have four short story publications to my name (the fourth is in November, but we’re counting it early). The second story of mine to ever get published is now in print and in a very well regarded anthology. I don’t know how to describe that sensation, some easing of tension, a relaxing of the shoulders. I sit on the life raft that I’ve slowly added to and built into a floating home over the years. I have done it.

I don’t intend to stop now, though. Oh no. I want to do it again, and again. With novels, novellas, short story collections even if I can manage it. But this first one? It means the world. Hopefully, my novel will be finished end of December. Then beta reading, then querying ideally in February before I go back to college for spring semester. I have hope for my novel, I love where it’s going. Who knows where things go from here?

If you can’t tell, I’m still very emotional about this. If you read “Emotional Resonance”? Thank you. If you’ve ever read or supported my work? Thank you. Truly, from the deepest and sincerest crevices of my anxious cryptid heart.

Oops AM I CRYING? MAYBE. SORRY!!

_{(A full, proper newsletter will still come out on October 31. I mean it might mostly be me yelling about Dragon Age: The Veilguard but like… you’ll get a newsletter update about something!)}