Sunday Shorts—Breathe Deep, Breathe Free by Jennifer Marie Brissett

One of the flash fiction stories in People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction, this one struck hard and quick. The narrative unfolds around an ecological disaster of some sort (it's not entirely clear how it began, but the end result is a "coating" on everything outside, and the creep of the toxin into the air …

Sunday Shorts—Cyberfruit Swamp, by Raven Kaldera

The last of the Queers Destroy Science Fiction audiobook stories I'll be chatting about on Sunday Shorts, "Cyberfruit Swamp" was a freaking joyride of queerness on pretty much every level. To break down what I loved: the genderqueerness involved was so deftly penned (I loved the term "Nachtlei Queer") and the culture Kaldera spun in the bar …

Failing, Losing, Faking It, Self-Rejection, Earning Out, and other “Fun” Things About 2019

Failing I haven't done a proper writing update much at all this year, as I'm sure both my loyal readers have noticed. To put a fine point on it, the reason is this: 2019 fucking sucked as a writing year for me. And early, that started to feel like failure. Probably back in, say, February, …

Sunday Shorts—Make My Bread by Sarah Caulfield

This tale, found in A Few More Winter Tales, is more of the sad and sorrowful 'A Christmas Carol' sort, and it, too features a ghost. It begins with a Midwife, Kelby, calling for a bone collector, Rusalka, to come to her village and deal with a man who is wandering about in spirit form …

Stories to Sing in the Dark – Matthew Bright (Lethe Press)

I was lucky enough to take the wheel over at Out in Print today, to talk about Matthew Bright’s ‘Stories to Sing in the Dark.’ Check it out.

Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews

Buy from Lethe Press

How do you write a cohesive review about a collection of short fiction which includes steampunk space-tombs and the concubines sealed inside waiting to die, a gothic novella, a story with a self-aware film character fighting his way out of a Hays Code era required death, and a noir thriller retelling of The Wind and the Willows?

I’m not sure it’s possible, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I read a collection that cast so wide a net, but here’s the most important thing said first: not only does Stories to Sing in the Dark succeed, it’s my favourite collection of the year, and I can’t imagine there’s a chance of it being deposed before 2019 comes to an end.

Matthew Bright has a genuine talent for fresh angles. He crafts on the frameworks of ideas that could have gone a dozen different…

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Sunday Shorts—A Smuggler’s Pact by Su Haddrell

If there's a single complaint I could make against Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space), it's this: I want more. That's faint criticism, though, and makes me want to check out other authors, including Su Haddrell, which brings me to "A Smuggler's Pact." Here we meet a pirate captain's mate, a woman who …