2020 into 2021 was a rough year and also challenging professionally. I struggled to find my way as a postdoc and took on all sorts of new challenges at work. I also experimented with new voices in my short stories, which usually got me rejected, but also saw a few things get published.
My favorite of the bunch was “Electric Gnome” — a short story describing a friendship between two guys in Japan who are separated by work, time, and distance as the years carry on. It was picked up by TL;DR Press for their charity anthology called HOPE, available here.
Second, I’m delight to announce that my short story called “How to unravel reality in 7 easy steps” was picked up by Bandit Fiction. It’s a first date story that takes place in Hawaii, where an unlikely couple gets to know each other over drinks. I broke one of the modern rules of short fiction by having the story take place in a bar, but it was a blast to write.
Finally, I had two stories picked up by Ripples in Space. One is a science fiction piece called “The Land Where Demons Tread,” which was inspired by old-school style of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. It’s featured on their audio podcast and it was definitely a humbling experience hearing my writing read out loud, instead of by the voice in my head.
Finally, I also found a home for my story “Happy to Have Us Animals” with Ripples in Space, as one of the stories on their website. It’s a short fiction piece about humans who have blended their genes with animals and been exiled to faraway planets. I hope you enjoy them — or at least one of them, as four stories is a bit of a handful.