2023
“Somebody Else’s Device” in The Reinvented Detective (Ed. Cat Rambo and Jennifer Brozek), available on Amazon, B&N, and Bookshop
“Ordinarily it would be locked to a doctor’s code and heavily regulated,” Helene said, taking a box out of her bag, “but this is my personal prototype.” She opened it to show us two parts — one a screen the size of her palm with three buttons and the other a thin, round tube. It looked soft and pliable, like a creepy light blue worm.
Helene straightened, blonde hair brushing her shoulders, and looked around. “Okay, who has a bad habit they want to lose?”
“The Coffin Maker” in Uncanny Magazine (including podcast), also podcasted on LeVar Burton Reads
Every so often, audio crackles through the room, too loud, and the crowd stills and quiets as one. Stephani knows that they are all like her, waiting, waiting, waiting to find out how this mission will fail, hoping it will be a small thing with no ripples, praying they won’t have to hear it, knowing they will listen if a surveyor’s last words are broadcast across the ship.
“Perhaps in Understanding” in Uncanny Magazine
Yilien likes the masks. She likes that her meaning cannot be misconstrued, that when she dons Politeness no one can accuse her of overcaution or indecisiveness, the way her parents did in her childhood. When she has the right mask, she doesn’t have to speak.
2022
“Family Cooking” in Uncanny Magazine, podcasted on LeVar Burton Reads
I am calm, I tell myself. I like to cook. This is no big deal.
Only, this morning, when I made eggs for the four of us, they came out brown and bitter-smelling and turned the bright green carrot tops in the compost brown and foul when they touched. In fact, they turned everything in the compost bin to something approaching hazardous waste, and I don’t know why, and my mother’s wedding is in a week, and I’m supposed to be making all the food.
“Objects of Value” in Strange Horizons
The day after the oracles announce that Spire’s Ledge is doomed, Keth takes the long way to her shop, walking to her favorite spots in the city, passing five decades worth of life in a single morning. There are few people on the stone paths into the city center, and the very air hangs heavy around her. Keth almost thinks that she could reach out and see the history of her city suspended in the air.
“Component Parts of a Belated Apology” in Fireside
“She is sorry, you know.” My great-aunt (married to great-uncle number three) reaches for the paring knife, a yellow mango already in her left hand. Her voice is casual, but her shoulders are tense beneath her silk blouse. She doesn’t look at me.
I’m leaning in the doorway with nothing to do and nowhere to put my hands, still carrying my duffel bag, already angry.
“Ten Fruits and Other Memories of Rialynas,” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (including podcast)
1. Taratensis
Before you bite into a taratensis for the second time, your whole mouth will shudder in anticipation; your teeth will clench, and for a moment you will think your lips are swelling, reaching toward the skin of the fruit before you are aware of it. Your body knows. The taratensis wants to be eaten as much as you want to eat it, perhaps more.
“Lockpick, Locked Heart,” in The Reinvented Heart (Ed. Cat Rambo and Jennifer Brozek), available on Amazon, B&N, and Bookshop.
Whenever I look at Lennie the right way, in the light of a fire in the evening, her dark hair edged red, or across the kitchen island, mid-laugh, the numbness comes and removes me from my nerve endings, an unpleasant physical static. My vision goes rosy, and words splash themselves across my vision in white capital letters: PAYWALL. PLEASE PROCEED TO EMOREG.COM.CO FOR MORE INFORMATION.
So we have a sliding, sideways romance, Lennie and I.
“The Last Truth” on LeVar Burton Reads and Tor.com, winner of the LeVar Burton Reads Origins & Encounters Contest
Eri arranges her truths like the tiers of a wedding cake. The most complex memories are the bottom layer, used only in the direst situations, and the smallest and most delicate rest on the top, waiting for small and uncomplicated locks, the kind anyone can open. There aren’t enough of those, in Eri’s opinion.
2021
“A Well-Worn Path” in Clarkesworld Magazine (including podcast)
After Leona shipped off, Norami left town and apprenticed to a forager for a few years. She was an ideal apprentice, eighth generation on Alven, lungs perfectly accustomed, feet spread wide and soft to accommodate the moss. The boots from off-planet don’t really fit her anymore, and her hands have gone long-fingered and tough. She has a mild acquired resistance to veeberry venom and a smooth, silent way of walking between vines. She sees perfectly well in the low light of a forest, relies on the softness of bark and the bright pop of mushrooms and berries. Her trails lead in, not out.
2020
“Forward Momentum and a Parallel Toss” in Clarkesworld Magazine (including podcast)
On the marching band field, everything echoes of Alex. Lacey’s students spread across the sideline and cue their robots, and Lacey sees herself as a teenager in a giant sweatshirt, Alex next to her, looks at the bots and remembers Alex’s head on hers when she curled up around him in the last row of the bus, talking through choreography.
“A Quiet, Lonely Planet” in A Dying Planet from Flame Tree Press
“Everyone in the neighborhood here is planning a funeral for a week from now,” her mother said. “You should come.”
Arendt laughed, and the hollow sound chased her around the tiny shed. “You’re having a funeral for a planet?”
“It was our planet.”
“Personal Canons: The Blue Sword” in Sarah Gailey’s Substack
My paperback copy of The Blue Sword is worn and breaking apart, and it opens easily to all my favorite pages because I still take it everywhere, even if I’m just traveling for a night. It’s the book I reach for when I’m anxious […] and it’s not the triumphant ending that I gravitate to when I pull out this book, but the uncertain middle.
“Military Sunset” on the Asimov’s website, Dell Magazines Award Winner 2019
When the recruit shows up, the captain brings out her electric razor with the rest of the clothes, which smell like they’ve been in storage for a decade, which they have. The captain’s been here three times as long.
“Oh,” the girl says when the captain plugs the razor in, “no, thank you.”