February has arrived!
And with it, some exciting news.
BIG NEWS!
Last month the British Science Fiction Association announced their longlist for the BSFA Awards and I was thrilled to learn that my story, “Things Most Meaningful,” made the list. This is the first time one of my stories has been considered for a major award, so it’s incredibly exciting for me.
As an added bonus, the preliminary ballot for the 2023 Bram Stoker Awards was announced and The Dread Machine’s Darkness Blooms anthology, which includes my story “Hard Time,” made the ballot for Superior Achievement in an Anthology.
RECENT FICTION SALES
Another thing I’m super excited about is that I finally sold a story to Lightspeed Magazine, which I’ve been trying to get published in since I started selling my fiction (well, almost, since Lightspeed didn’t open to general submissions for the first few years I was selling my work.)
Anyway, I’m delighted to say that my tenth submission to this magazine finally took and they’ll be publishing my flash science fiction story, “The Life You’ve Given Me, Rusty.” I’ll provide more details about this as I get them.
MORE RECENT NEWS
On finding an alternative to Substack: I have to be honest, this situation has been incredibly frustrating. It took me years to find a place from which to build my newsletter that worked for me, so having to replace it has been…well, hard on my mental health. I’ve spent more time than I care to track on looking into alternatives and I still haven’t found something that works for me, which is disheartening. I also don’t want to completely drop my newsletter and leave my readers in the dark, as this is still the best way to get all the news. So I’m feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place. In the interest of full transparency, I’m forced to make the difficult decision to stay with Substack, at least for the time being. I appreciate your understanding and patience during this process, which has not gone how I’d hoped. I still plan to try to find a better alternative, but I completely understand if some of you feel the need to unsubscribe until that happens.
In much cooler news, I was recently approached by the website MetaphorSpace about translating my story, “The Body Remembers,” into the Farsi language. You might recall that this was my “Story Behind the Story” in last month’s newsletter.
While I’ve had my non-fiction translated before, this will be my first time having a piece of fiction translated, and while I can’t read Farsi, it’ll still be pretty cool to see. If you or someone you know can read Farsi, I’d love to know what you think of the translation. I’ll share a link when that goes live.
Speaking of “The Body Remembers,” it also got a nice shoutout in K.C. Mead-Brewer’s newsletter, which you can read here.
Two more of my 2023 stories were included in recommended reading lists. Eugenia Triantafyllou published her list of stories she enjoyed, which includes my Worlds of Possibility story, “Things Most Meaningful” (mentioned above), about a magical box that holds only the most special things.
And Ephiny Gale published a video of her 10 Favourite Short Fiction Recs From 2023, which includes, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont.” You can watch the complete video on YouTube or if you prefer to read the list in text form, that’s available here.
Finally, Haunted MTL reviewed The Dread Machine’s Darkness Blooms anthology (mentioned above) and my story, “Hard Time,” about a man sentenced to hard labor on a deep space penal colony for a crime he didn’t commit, got a shoutout as one of reviewer Daphne Fauber’s favorites.
AWARD ELIGIBILITY
SFWA members have until February 29, 2024 to submit nominations for the Nebula Awards. With that in mind, I hope you’ll consider the stories on my eligibility page, but especially, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont.” If you haven’t yet read this story, you can find it here. It’s also in excellent company on the Nebula Recommended Reading List, here.
Eligibility lists are currently open for Canada’s Aurora Award. If you’re a CSFFA member reading for nomination consideration for this award, you can find my 11 eligible stories on the list, but you can also get all the information and links on my eligibility page. I’d especially love Aurora readers to consider my story, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” which is my personal favorite.
Nominations for the Auroras will be open from March 2, 2024 through April 6, 2024. Voting begins June 8, and closes July 13.
Please note that any Canadian citizen can vote for the Auroras as long as you pay the $10 membership for the year. That’s a steal when you consider that you’ll get access to a reading packet that includes tons of great books and stories. Become a CSFFA member here.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
If you missed it, January saw a few new publications from me, starting on the very first day of the year!
My story, “The Procedure,” appeared in Abyss & Apex, Issue 89. This story is about an older couple considering a life extension treatment. Read it here.
“Face the Music,” appeared in Factor Four, Issue 31. This is a flash piece about people who get unusual superpowers and must then face the consequences of having them. Read it here.
And while it was technically published in 2023, the Worlds of Possibility anthology was finally made available to the public on January 4, 2024. This book is just gorgeous with not one but two beautiful covers and full color illustrations throughout. It’s a little bit pricier than most anthologies, but once you hold it in your hands, you’ll understand why. The book is also filled with tons of uplifting flash fiction stories, including my own, “Things Most Meaningful,” (mentioned earlier). There are several ways to get your hands on a copy, and you can find them all here through the Worlds of Possibility website.
Additionally, UK-based readers can already get their hands on the latest Flame Tree Publishing anthology, which was published January 23, 2024. LEARNING TO BE HUMAN SHORT STORIES is part of their Gothic & Fantasy series of anthologies and includes my story, “Bright Horizons,” about a high school run by an artificial intelligence. If you’re in the UK, you can order your copy here.
The rest of us will have to wait until February 13, but you can pre-order your copy here. This is my third appearance in a Flame Tree Publishing anthology and they’re always beautifully-made and filled with tons of great stories. Well worth the cost.
In the meantime, I recently revamped my website’s Free Reads page (among other things), so if you haven’t visited recently, you might want to take a look. I think the new arrangement is not only more eye-catching, but easier to navigate. Since it’s now quite image-heavy, I also made sure to use ALT-Text so visitors who have trouble reading text off images can make use of that.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
MORE I’VE BEEN UP TO
This past month I officially registered for my first World Fantasy Convention (Oct. 17-20, 2024). This year it’s taking place in Niagara Falls, New York, and since that’s fairly close to where I live, it just made sense to go.
I’m not planning on being on any programming this time because I already have a lot on my plate this year, but it’ll be nice to go as an attendee and see some of my fellow writers, many of whom I’ve known for years online but would love to meet in the real world.
As you may recall, this time of year I usually participate in Codex Writers’ “Weekend Warrior” flash fiction contest. In the past, this contest has been a great incentive for me that has so far resulted in 10 story sales. But this year I had a lot of stuff happening at the start of the year, so I decided to take 2024 off from the contest.
That doesn’t mean I’m not writing though. I have so many ideas for short stories right now, the biggest problem is choosing which one to write first. But I did choose one I’ve been working on that has to do with music and family and some other things I won’t spoil. I’m enjoying the process with this story and will hopefully be able to share it with you all soon. And I also have some longer projects I’m working on, so I’ve started 2024 with quite a bit to do.
That all said, I think it’s important to pay it forward and with that in mind I’m always willing to work with other authors on their projects. We often trade-off critiques and things like that, so one of the things I started the year with was reading a novel manuscript for a fellow writer looking for feedback. I was also asked to read a short fiction collection to see if I’d be willing to write a blurb for it. I can tell you I loved both books and I really hope to see them published in the very near future so you can all enjoy them too.
JUST FOR FUN
This past January 15, my cat Rebel was the star of SFWA’s “Mascot Monday” on Instagram. This picture shows her resting after a hard morning of terrorizing the humans.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY: “Splits”
Like many of my stories, “Splits,” got its start in Codex’s “Weekend Warrior” flash contest. The 2020 iteration of the contest, to be precise, and my second time participating. As you may remember, “Weekend Warrior,” has a 750-word limit. “Splits” wasn’t having it. This was one of those stories that just pours out of you without you even knowing where it’s coming from, and by the time I reached the end, it had far surpassed that word limit.
For the purposes of the contest, I hacked away at it and made it fit. The story scored quite well in the contest that week, but as you may have guessed, the main criticism it got from readers was that it felt like it should be longer. It probably comes as no surprise that it was the much longer version that went out on submission.
This is one of those stories I consider a classic “P.A. Cornell” story. It’s centered around a bizarre occurrence—in this case a temporal anomaly known as The Split—that is never really explained. The reason I don’t explain it, is because the story’s not really about that. At least not for me.
I don’t generally like to dictate to readers what my stories are about. Often readers find things in my stories I never planned, and they’re just as valid as the ones I did. What someone gets out of my stories is between them and the story. I’m delighted to hear about it, but it has little if anything to do with me. I’m just the person at the keyboard. But since this is a “Story Behind the Story,” I’ll tell you what I think “Splits” is about. It’s about the effect this anomaly has on the people affected by it, sure, but it’s also about found family, and bonding with other people in general, and it’s also a reflection on aging. But at its core—for me, at least—“Splits” is about learning to love yourself.
Often, we can be so hard on ourselves, especially looking back on our lives. We see our mistakes and flaws and wish we had been different or done things differently. But every stage of life and of your growth as a human being is a valid and an essential part of who you end up becoming later.
Fun Fact: My mother likes to tell this story about when I was about four or five. I guess I was being a bit of a brat, so she told me she hoped one day I’d have a daughter just like me. My response was, “That’s mean!” I put a version of this event in “Splits” because now of course it makes me laugh.
There’s that age-old question, “What would you tell your younger self if you could talk to them now?” Well, my characters actually get to do that. But I think what we should really say is “Thank you for teaching me so much,” because each version of who we are at various ages is another rung on the ladder to becoming ourselves.
I didn’t set out to write a story about learning to love yourself. The prompt for that week of the contest was simply to use the name of your division to inspire a story. My division was “Indigo” which I used only to name one of the characters. The rest just came from somewhere deep inside.
It’s only through reflecting back on what this story is about for me that I can recognize where it comes from. When I was a kid, feeling love or compassion for myself wasn’t something that came easily for me. I had low self-esteem for a very long time, exacerbated by depression and social anxiety. It was only after hitting bottom in my early teens that I essentially started deliberately working on learning to love myself. On building up that self-esteem.
It took years, but the effort paid off, and I can say that now as an adult with my youngest child reaching that age, I have healthy self-esteem. Which is not to say I’m never hard on myself. We’re always our own worst critics, it seems, but for the most part I like who I am, and I don’t feel the need to please other people or pretend to be something I’m not.
So I guess my subconscious wanted to say something about that. Maybe it even wanted to tell me about that so I could look back and see how far I’ve come. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of how much I’ve changed, but now and then it’s good to celebrate those successes, and I suppose writing “Splits” was a way of doing that. Of marking a milestone, if you will.
Fun Fact: At the end of “Splits,” the girls are on the run but still make time to stop for ice cream. The flavor—mint chocolate chip—is of course everyone’s favorite. I chose this flavor because it happens to be one of my favorites too, and in general my go-to at your basic ice cream parlor.
It’s especially pleasing that this story resonated with people and was so well-received. It ended up being the first of four sales to Cossmass Infinites. It also went on to win an award here in Canada—my first fiction award. I’m even potentially going to expand it to book-length one day and let readers in on a bit more about how The Split affected the world it’s set in, and let me tell you, there’s a lot to explore there.
“Splits” was originally published in 2021 in Cossmass Infinities, Issue 6, and in their anthology Cossmass Infinities: The Second Year in 2022. It was once more reprinted as the winner of Canada’s 2022 Short Works Prize for Published Fiction (Freda Waldon Award), also in 2022.
Thank you for reading this month’s newsletter. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. See you in March!
P.A. Cornell
Huge congrats on the BSFA nod!