Since my last newsletter I’ve gained quite a few new subscribers, so I’d like to begin by welcoming you all. What can you expect from this thing that’ll show up in your inbox monthly? Updates about everything I’m publishing, selling, and working on, for starters—all with convenient headings so you can skip to what interests you if you’re pressed for time.
If you don’t already know, I’m an award-winning writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (pretty much in that order, though there are often horror elements in my SFF). Since social media algorithms don’t always show you everything, I decided to start this newsletter last year so my readers wouldn’t miss a thing. It also includes far more than you’ll see me post on my socials, including the new feature I started last month called “The Story Behind the Story” (which this month is about “Tabula Rasa”).
If you’ve just discovered me or my work, you may want to catch up. You can find out everything you need to know at my website pacornell.com. There’s a bio, photos, a fiction bibliography, a non-fiction bibliography, information about my debut novella LOST CARGO, interviews, reviews, and more. You can also access all these things through my Linktree if that’s easier.
Now, without further ado…
HUGE NEWS!
I’m thrilled to be able to tell you that my fantasy holiday story, “Into the Frozen Wilds,” originally published in Galaxy’s Edge, will be included in the Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Vol. 1 anthology.
This book will be out in fall of this year and features the best stories published in 2022 by Canadian authors. A few of the authors include: Kate Heartfield, Eric Choi, KT Bryski, Ai Jiang, Premee Mohamed, Peter Watts, Holly Schofield, Suzan Palumbo, Hayden Trenholm, and of course, yours truly.
I’m honored to be among these authors and be part of this anthology. It’s been a very long time since Canada had a “Best Of” anthology, so it’s wonderful to have a story included in the inaugural volume of a tradition I hope will continue for many years to come.
A WORD ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
Before I get into my usual updates, I just wanted to point out that like many people, I’ve been watching the steady decline of Twitter (I refuse to call it by the rebranded name) since a certain billionaire took over. For the writing community, Twitter was the place we could connect with each other and with readers most easily, as it allowed us to reach the widest audience. Now, even though I’m still technically there and haven’t really lost followers, engagement is way down. With that in mind, it just made sense not to have all my eggs in that particular basket.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know my public social media up until now had consisted of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But in the past month I’ve also joined Threads and Bluesky as alternatives to Twitter. Am I happy about this? No. Do I want you to follow me on ALL my socials? Also no.
Like you, my time is precious and limited. In addition to the above-mentioned socials, I’m also in a couple of writer forums, I use Pinterest (though I don’t advertise it since that’s mostly where I keep my recipes organized and store my writing articles), I’m in one Slack and five Discords, and of course I have this newsletter. All this to say that if I were to devote an equal amount of time to all these things, I wouldn’t have time for my daily life, let alone time to write.
So what I’m telling my readers is that most of these places will see little interaction from me, and most of it won’t get too personal. I’ll mostly post links to new publications or promote some other things if relevant. My interactions with the writing community will likely continue to be mostly through private forums, etc. For readers I’d say the best place to follow me is still by subscribing to this newsletter, which will tell you everything you need to know month-to-month. It will also continue to include behind-the-scenes looks at what inspired my stories, and now and then I’ll throw in some bonuses for subscribers only.
The other place that you might enjoy following me at is Instagram, where I post pictures of my cats, food sometimes (since I’m a foodie), nature, my Lego builds, and of course writing stuff. As my profile there says, I post anything that makes me happy, and my aim is to put a smile on your face too. But if Insta’s not your thing or you just don’t want to have yet another social to deal with, don’t feel obligated at all. The important stuff will still be in this monthly newsletter, which will remain free to read.
To group it all together for you, you can find all the various ways that you can follow or contact me right here.
Now, let’s get on with the rest of the news…
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
First off, my SF/humor story, “8 Laws I Wound Up Breaking While Attempting to Restore the Timeline,” ended up being published sooner than I’d originally been told, on July 26. It’s only free to read on the Nature Futures website for a limited time, so make sure you give it a read soon. You’ll find it here. (Note that you can also download a pdf of the story from the Nature Futures site if you’d like to keep a copy for yourself)
Also, earlier in the month, on July 4, “The Collective Memories of Dogs and Robots” was published in Augur. The issue can be purchased here.
And my story “The Smell of Sawdust” was reprinted in the anthology, ZNB Presents: Year One on July 1. The anthology can be purchased here.
If you’ve just discovered my work and would like to read previously published stories, find my complete bibliography with links here.
FORTHCOMING FICTION PUBLICATIONS
AWARD ELIGIBILITY
Half the year has come and gone, and for us writers it means we start thinking ahead to awards season. I’ve had 10 stories published this year that are eligible for SFF/Horror awards. Since some of you may be reading for awards consideration, I figured I’d share my eligibility post which includes lengths, descriptions, and publication information for all the original stories I’ve published this year. You can find that post here.
Canadians, please keep in mind that I’m eligible for the Aurora Award, in addition to the usual SFF/H awards. And if you’re not a writer, but you are a reader, please keep in mind that anyone is eligible to nominate and vote on the Locus Awards.
If your reading time is limited, the stories I’m particularly proud of this year are: “The Smell of Sawdust,” “The Body Remembers,” and “El Bordado.”
Even if you’re not reading to nominate or vote, it’s still immensely helpful to me if you spread the word about stories of mine you enjoy, either through word-of-mouth, adding or upvoting on the Nebula recommended reading list (if you’re a SFWA member), or through your social media. And not just for awards, either. Writers write with the intention of having their stories wind up in the hands of readers. Every time you share my work (or this newsletter), in whatever way you choose to do it, my stories find more readers—which is the whole point.
INTERVIEWS
If you missed it, on July 12, I was best-selling UK author, Gareth L. Powell’s guest for his weekly, “Writer Wednesday” series. Gareth and I shared a cup of tea (both of us being from tea-drinking cultures) and discussed all things writing. Why not brew yourself a cuppa and join us here.
WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO
As I mentioned last month, I’ve been participating in the Codex online writers group’s latest flash fiction contest. So far, I’ve written two of the three stories you aim to write for this contest. I can’t tell you too much about this since the contest is meant to be anonymous so for the time being I need to keep quiet on details, but I can say I’m pleased with both pieces I’ve written, and I hope to write a third one to round out the contest this month.
Aside from that, I recently attended Ai Jiang’s Toronto book launch for her novelette, “I Am Ai.” I know Ai from various places online, and we appeared on a panel together during the Flights of Foundry online convention, but this was our first time meeting in meatspace, so that was really cool. Here’s a pic of Ai and I with her book.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY: “Tabula Rasa”
Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t yet read the story, you can do so HERE by downloading the complete issue of Polar Borealis #25 for free, before reading on. (You’ll find “Tabula Rasa” on page 52.)
Since I’m in the middle of Codex’s “Flash, Savior of the Universe” flash contest, the story I’ve chosen to delve into this month is “Tabula Rasa,” which got its start during the 2020 iteration of the contest. The prompt that sparked it was simple: “Where did the time go?”
I’ve always enjoyed playing with time in my fiction (See above-mentioned “8 Laws I Wound Up Breaking While Attempting to Restore the Timeline” for just one example). I’m a sucker for time travel stories, temporal distortion stories, etc. So that prompt immediately drew my attention.
Now step into my time machine and travel back with me another year to 2019. I was going about my day, not doing anything out of the ordinary, when I suddenly had a question pop into my head: “What if every five years everyone’s memories were reset?” I don’t know where that question came from. Maybe other writers have this sort of thing happen too? I can’t say. All I know is this made me think, and I filed that away knowing it would come in handy, even though it wasn’t yet a fully fleshed idea. The question remained unanswered for about a year until I participated in that contest and saw that prompt. Then the two connected in my brain somehow and I began writing.
One of the questions I’ve often been asked in interviews is what my “process” is. I suppose some writers have a strict process they follow every time. I am not one of these. My process changes from story to story. Sometimes there’s a great deal of time spent thinking about an idea, and all the paths it could take. Sometimes I sit and brainstorm for a while. Other times a story requires extensive outlining and research. It really just depends. When I’m really lucky, and THE MUSE takes pity on me, I sit down and free-write and somehow a story magically appears. It’s not always so easy. You can free-write a lot of garbage prose too. Ending up with a story that works as a complete piece with reasonable structure and a good voice (among other things) is never guaranteed. But now and then, it happens.
I began this piece with no clear direction beyond the question I’d asked myself in 2019. I was writing it in the same way a reader would read it, discovering the story one sentence at a time. No one was more surprised than I was when the story ended up being about domestic abuse. It’s not a topic I have personal experience with, though the struggles of those who have lived though this is something I’ve always felt affected by. So when everyone’s memory got the blank slate treatment, I gave Shannon a shot at changing her circumstances for the better, and she didn’t hesitate.
In the original version I entered into the flash contest, I had her run out of there so fast, that she even left her cat “Patches” behind. One of the critiquers that year pointed this out to me, and I thought, “Of course, she has to take the cat with her!” Writers will be familiar with a story beat actually called, “Save the Cat,” first introduced by American screenwriter Blake Snyder in his book by the same name. It refers to making a character sympathetic by having them do something that makes the reader like them—for instance, saving a cat from imminent death. So it made me laugh to realize that I’d literally forgotten to save the cat, an oversight I corrected before sending the story out on submission.
Fun Fact: “Patches” is named after the real life girlfriend of my childhood cat “Ashes.” She was a pretty calico who’d come to our house to get him every day. I still remember her fondly 40 years later, and used her name as a tribute to the bond these two cats shared.
Because Codex contests are anonymous, you don’t know until they’ve ended who the other participants are. One of the participants in my division that year happened to be Kyle Aisteach, who was about to launch an online zine called, Departure Mirror Quarterly. Kyle loved my story—even before I saved the cat—and soon after the contest, he reached out to me to ask if he could publish it. This is how in 2021, “Tabula Rasa” became my first solicited story. The story also went on to be my very first piece reviewed in Locus magazine and was selected by Vanessa Jae for her recommended reading list.
Sadly, because publishing is such a tough field for new publications, Departure Mirror ultimately folded, and I miss it dearly because Kyle published some great stories while he could. With their doors shuttered, my story was no longer available to read for free, so I sent it out on submission again in the hopes that it might once again find readers. That ended up happening when Polar Borealis published it earlier this year. I’ve long enjoyed the quality of this publication, so it’s nice to see my story out in the world again, and in a format where anyone can read it, without having to pay a cent.
“Tabula Rasa” is one of several stories I’ve written in which I don’t explain everything. It’s kind of a thing I’ve noticed I do, and something that as a reader, I enjoy, so I’ll likely keep doing it. First, it features an anomaly that doesn’t get explained. No one in the world of this story has any idea why people’s memories reset every five years. They’re not even entirely sure when this started happening. To my mind, it doesn’t matter. It’s more about how this crazy occurrence affects everyday people. This is Shannon’s story, but I could easily write a series of stories set around the same anomaly, each featuring a different protagonist—who knows, maybe I’ll do just that one day.
Whenever I come across an unbelievable scenario in fiction, there’s usually a larger-than-life hero dealing with it, and solving the issue somehow, but for me the best stories are about how “everyday Joe/Jane” is making out during this event. And maybe they don’t always fix the problem, but their life certainly changes in some way. In Shannon’s case, I like to think it’s for the better. I don’t spell that out either. I leave her speeding off in her car with her cat, but I don’t say what becomes of them. I don’t know if in another five years her memory will be wiped again or if she’ll retain it forever. I don’t know if other people will start to retain theirs too. I leave that for the reader (or a future me) to imagine.
“Tabula Rasa” was originally published in 2021 in Departure Mirror Quarterly. It was subsequently reprinted in Polar Borealis #25, in 2023.
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P.A. Cornell