I’ve got some wonderful news to share: My short story “The Martian Obelisk” has been named as a finalist for the Hugo Award!

This is pretty exciting for me. After all, I’m a bit of a late bloomer. It’s been thirty-one years since my first fiction publication, and this is my first-ever appearance on the Hugo ballot. So it’s extra special!

If you haven’t read “The Martian Obelisk” yet, please check it out! You can find it online right here at Tor.com.

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who’s read the story, to everyone who nominated it, and especially to editor Ellen Datlow, who liked the story enough to publish it at Tor.com.

Other short story finalists are:
• “Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017)
• “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, September 2017)
• “Fandom for Robots,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny, September/October 2017)
• “Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon, (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
• “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™,” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)

Check out the full list of Hugo Award finalists here at Tor.com. You’re sure to discover some amazing reading.

“The Martian Obelisk” is my first story for Tor.com and it’s just up today. Find it here online.

This was a story I originally wrote a few years ago, but I wasn’t happy with it. It struck me as just too grim for the times.

Since then, we have entered a much grimmer age.

Last fall I pulled the story out of a file folder, re-read it, and decided to spend a little more time working on it. After putting it through another revision, I asked Tor.com editor Ellen Datlow if she would like to see it. She agreed to take a look, and to my surprise and delight, she accepted it.

As grim as it is, “The Martian Obelisk” is also a sentimental story. On Twitter, Aimee Ogden described it as “starkly hopeful.” I think that’s right.

Illustration by Victor Mosquera.

Coming in July from Tor.com, “The Martian Obelisk.”
Illustration by Victor Mosquera.
Acquiring editor is Ellen Datlow.

…and @victormosquerar is building monuments with @LindaNagata. pic.twitter.com/hSDv4DWoSI

— Tor·com Publishing (@TorDotComPub) May 9, 2017

Two or three years ago I wrote a short story called “The Martian Obelisk.” I finished it, but I didn’t feel happy with the result. It was grim, and I didn’t want to write grim. I was further discouraged by well-meant critique comments. Nevertheless, I worked on the story for a few more days. But my doubts persisted, and in the end I self-rejected the story. I stopped working on it, and never sent it to any market.

This past December I decided to take another look at “The Martian Obelisk” and much to my surprise, the story was far better than I remembered. It still had issues, but enough time had passed that I could see them with fresh eyes. So I devoted more hours to revising it. Then I emailed Ellen Datlow, who acquires stories for Tor.com, to ask if she would like to see it. I explained its history and mentioned that it felt more appropriate now, in the context of our grim present times, than when I had first drafted it.

Much to my surprise and delight, Ellen accepted the story. “The Martian Obelisk” is scheduled for publication on July 19.

I’ve often lectured others on not self-rejecting. It’s good advice. 😉

…is now available.

Edited by Ellen Datlow, this anthology includes my short story “Halfway Home,” originally published at Nightmare Magazine.

Find it in print and ebook versions at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or an indie bookstore near you.

There are twenty-four stories altogether. The table of contents can be reviewed here at SF Signal.

Okay, I don’t really write horror…do I?

Nevertheless, I’m pleased and honored to say that my story “Halfway Home” has been included in The Best Horror of the Year Volume Six, edited by Ellen Datlow.

“Halfway Home” was originally published in Nightmare Magazine, September 2013, edited by John Joseph Adams. Find it here.

I also want to say — again — that the only reason I wrote this story is because one of my most supportive readers chided me at the end of 2012 for not meeting my goal of writing four short stories during the year. He helpfully pointed out that I still had four days before the end of the year. Who could step back from a challenge like that? So I wrote the story.

Thanks, Willy!

Here’s a link to the full table of contents.

Ellen Datlow is currently running a Kickstarter project to fund an anthology of all-original horror fiction to be called Fearful Symmetries.

Who is Ellen Datlow? Ahem! Just one of the most prominent short fiction editors in the speculative fiction field. Ellen was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and has “edited more than fifty anthologies, including the annual Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror for 21 years and the Best Horror of the Year for the last five years.” Oh yes, and as editor of SCIFICTION Ellen bought my novella “Goddesses” which went on to win a Nebula Award. 🙂

If you’re a fan of horror fiction, consider supporting Fearful Symmetries. It’s sure to be an impressive anthology. You’ll find a lot more information here at the project’s Kickstarter page.