Awards eligibility 2019

As a writer

The year’s not over yet! But while I’ve got some things in train, none seem likely to publish before next year, so here are my stories published this year.

	“Memory and Faded Ink” AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review July 2019 (read here) She liked to watch me sleeping. “I always remember you like this,” she would say. “Drowsing in a pool of sunlight, dawn pouring off you like gold. That is how I know you are rich.” When she was young, rich to Tseleng meant time enough to weed millet, and light enough to spot vipers. To me, it meant a roof that didn’t leak. When the Buyani arrived, it meant them, and suddenly the whole planet was poor.
	“Building on Sand” Kaleidotrope July 2019 (read here) He had been ready; a small bag packed, boots oiled, axe sharpened. He had meant to go, but he had not gone. He could remember the feel of it still, the sense of a burden lifted, of freedom at last in his grasp. It had felt … lonely, in a way; frightening. Before, he had had his task, his role, his definition. In that brief moment of independence, those certainties had gone, vanished like rain seeping into sand, leaving just a damp, irritating grit behind.
	“I Don’t Care About Clifton Clowers” OnSpec April 2019 ($) They say, “Don’t go on Wolverton Mountain if you’re looking for a wife.” Old Claude says that, anyway, and he don’t have a wife, so maybe he knows. He’s been up the mountain, he says. When he was “young and handsome”. So he says.

As an editor

For those interested, Metaphorosis and I are also eligible for some other awards.

Best Semi-professional magazine

• Metaphorosis. Metaphorosis is a speculative fiction magazine that publishes original fiction every Friday online, as well as monthly issues and annual Best of and Complete anthologies.

Best Editor, short-form

• Metaphorosis magazine. As above, publishing new science fiction and fantasy every week, starting in January 2016.
• Score. What if fiction were written like music? Score is an anthology of varied stories arranged to follow an emotional score from the heights of joy to the depths of despair – but always with a little hope shining through.
• Best Vegan Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2018. A collection of the year’s best vegan-friendly speculative stories. Fifteen stories of gods and monsters, of love and cruelty, of memories and mementos, of futures and pasts. Stories drawn from Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge, Abyss and Apex, Escape Pod, Nature, and Metaphorosis. And they’re all vegan-friendly to boot!