April showers bring...new stories?
Before I get into that though, I just wanted to welcome my newest subscribers. Glad to have you here.
First up, I have some lovely news to share. As you know, my story “Things Most Meaningful” was published in Worlds of Possibility last month—and it made Tor.com’s Must Read Short Speculative Fiction list! Here’s what reviewer Alex Brown had to say about it:
“…this story may seem too short to carry much weight, but it’s overflowing with emotions big and small.”
You can find the full list here, and if you haven’t yet read the story, you can become a WoP patron and read it here.
PUBLICATIONS
This month I have two stories coming out:
On April 18, another dark SF story, “The Body Remembers,” will come out in Dark Matter’s Monstrous Futures anthology. This is a military SF story about regeneration tech that’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Also, my SFF story, “Tabula Rasa,” originally published in 2021 in Departure Mirror Quarterly, will be reprinted in Polar Borealis, Issue 25. If you missed the original publication, you’ll now be able to read this one for free online and find out what happens when everyone loses their memory every five years.
RECENT SALES
I also made my fourth sale of the year, and my first sale to Augur Magazine, so I’m pleased to say they’ll be publishing my SF story, “The Collective Memories of Dogs and Robots,” in Issue 6.1 this spring.
If you recall, my cat story “Nine Lives” was published last year, well, this next one’s for the dog lovers. I don’t want to spoil it by telling you too much about it, but it’ll be available to read online soon.
FORTHCOMING FICTION PUBLICATIONS
INTERVIEWS
My latest interview came out on March 24. If you missed it, you can read it here in Horror Tree’s Fantastical Five series. I discuss my love of science fiction as both a writer and reader/viewer. This is my 17th time being interviewed, so if you missed some and would like to catch up, you can do so here.
WORKS IN PROGRESS
I finally finished the first draft of my novel and have now put it aside for a bit to give myself a break from it and come back to it with fresh eyes. In the meantime, I plan to work on some of the research for it in preparation for subsequent drafts. Since the novel-writing process takes a while, I probably won’t update you with every little thing I do towards that goal but rest assured I’m working on it. I’ll let you know about any more major milestones.
I also started a new science fiction short story. It’s kind of a period piece that involves aliens that I’m really just writing for my own entertainment. After the craziness of writing for contests and anthologies earlier in the year it’s a nice break.
Besides that, I’ve written a little less this month both to give myself a writing break and to catch up on some life stuff I’d postponed so I could finish some writing projects.
UPCOMING APPEARANCE
At the start of the year I’d stated that one of my goals was to attend the Flights of Foundry online writing convention, which I’ve done every year since it started. This year will be a bit different though as I’ll not just be attending, I’m actually going to be a panelist.
My panel is called Submission Tetris: Management Strategies When Selling Your Work, and if you’re attending the con, it’s taking place April 15, 2023 at 7 pm UTC.
This promises to be a great conversation as my fellow panelists include the very talented Ai Jiang and L.S. Johnson. The panel will be moderated by Jennifer Hudak. I hope you’ll check it out.
JUST FOR FUN
In September 2022, I was interviewed for the Frivolous Comma podcast. If you missed that interview, you’ll find it with all the others via the link I shared above. It’s a good one.
As a companion to that, Frivolous Comma created a playlist on Spotify with songs chosen by each of their interview guests for their first season. It was tough to narrow down all the songs I love to two selections, but here are the ones I chose: “Wave of Mutilation” by The Pixies, and “Starman” by David Bowie. You can find the complete playlist here.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share!
P.A. Cornell