Life update: I’ve been making sandwich bread for the house every week for toast and sandwiches for our lunch times. Sandwich bread, at least the ones I’ve been doing, is soo simple that it only takes me a few hours after work. And I’ve started making a new sourdough starter after my last one got…grosss.
Author Life News
Some of the stories I’ve sold recently are beginning to come out. First, my dark fantasy, The Black and White, came out in Fantasy Magazine. And the story made it onto the Nebula Recommended Reading List. It’s not a nomination or anything like that, but it means people who nominate and vote in the Nebula’s will potentially read my story. If enough voters like it, I could be on a Nebula finalist list for my fiction!
A few of the stories I’ve edited for Strange Horizons and Fireside Fiction have also ended up on the Nebula Recommended List, which is the first for me! It means a lot to see the authors and their stories recognized, and I hope to see their names on the finalist list. I don’t normally participate in the voting and reading, but I became a full active member of SFWA this year and with my editing work featuring soooo many knockout stories, I wanted to get into it! So, I’ll be reading and voting and checking out what’s out there.
My novelette, To Carve Home in Your Bones, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, is starting to hit subscribers and contributors. Soon it’ll be on the newsstands and available for everyone to purchase! A review has already rolled in, calling the work: “a profoundly disturbing and ethereal account of endurance, discovery and a longing to make it home.” –Andrew Weston of Amazing Stories. I hope this one gets on the Nebula Rec list, too!
Honestly, To Carve Home in Your Bones is my favorite story I’ve ever written. It does so many things in so many ways. There’s a lot of gore, but there’s also a lot of heart. My favorite is how it grapples with voice and each character’s sense of self in a way that ultimately plays into the larger story happening in the world. I can’t wait to share it, frame it, yell about it, and bask in its bloody glory.
My writing craft essay on writing thematic horror is out in the Horror Issue of The Writer. I break down thematic horror and give writers examples and exercises to help them bridge a connection to the themes they are talking about and the terror they are trying to create.
I’ve gotten a couple of hold notices on other short fiction pieces. One of the stories is a story that scared me to write and scared me to submit because of how dark it is. The main character is the worst character I’ve ever written and makes me sick. I’m editing a couple more pieces before the year is out, but mostly I’m getting my ducks in order for working on my next book project, which is really just an old book project I’m revisiting with all my new writing muscles.
Currently, I’m editing a science fiction story about the first space museum in space. It’s taken me a while to get to it because the scary story I wrote kept taking up space in my head, and I needed to work on it and get it out. Now that it’s out and done, I can bring my attention back to this sci-fi novelette.
In query news, my horror novella is out and with publishers! Sending out this book was easier than last year’s novel since I did it all in one mad dash afternoon. I’m still sending it out as submissions for novellas open up, but I am hopeful for this piece finding a home. However, I’ve so far only received rejections, but a few of the rejections were very helpful in letting me know the concept and voice are all stellar.
Thanks for reading about my writing life and all the work I do to keep the lights on in my writing tower. Later, I’ll get into another How I Write post on what I did to become a full-time writer. Any questions about my writing life are welcome—just drop a comment.
Aigner Loren Wilson Writer & Editor 