Archive for February 28, 2026


In which the author is deeply honoured

Filed under: writing — Leave a comment
February 28, 2026

It feels utterly gauche to share personal good news in the midst of this horror, but… the votes are in.

I am a finalist in BSFA’s “Best Non-Fiction (Short)” category with my essay, “When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident.”

You can find the full list of nominees over here. (Note to readers from 2027 and beyond: the link will have been reused for future awards. You can use the Wayback Machine to see the page as it was.)

This is… wild. Mindblowing. Unbelievable. And not simply because I got more votes than Chuck Wendig or Cory Doctorow. (Their non-fiction pieces were among the 23 that didn’t make it into the top-5.)

Wild. To think, all this for an essay that was fueled by pure rage, written in one sitting over the course of perhaps an hour, with no drafts and only the quickest of revisions just before I posted it.

Rage ain’t exactly good for long-term health, but it gets shit done. When done right, it gets people to stop and look and frown and take notice. And, if the stars align, it gets them to take action.

I will not be able to attend this year’s Eastercon on account of having committed to hike from Mexico to Canada for the second time (as one does), but I am very very honoured, and I shall be there in spirit.

Thank you, fellow artists. Thank you, BSFA’s supporters of the arts. Thank you all.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

My 2026 Bradbury writing challenge: weeks 6-8

Filed under: writing — Leave a comment

Week 6

This week’s story was a wild mix of sci-fi, horror, and dark humour, weighing in at about 1,650 words. Pro tip: it’s much easier to draft and edit if the entire story is a monologue! No worrying about the characters’ body language, no need to overthink whether you used the “said” speech tag a few times too many… Easy, eh.

After a couple of perfunctory, almost ritualistic submissions to two very fast, very competitive markets (both declined), the story is off to a fun anthology that had inspired it in the first place. I should hear back from them sometime in May, which seems almost impossibly far, considering my likely March plans…

As we say in Québec – on sera.

Week 7

At some point, every sci-fi writer gets tempted to write a response to Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” I gave into the temptation.

This week: an 1,800-ish word story about Omelas and Cold Equations and more!

Week 8

Accidentally wrote two stories instead of one. I realized Memezine had a 2/28 deadline, and it felt like a really fun project to be part of, so I put together a funny (and topical!) 850-word story for them. If they pass, I have 2 more markets lined up…

This week’s main story is based on one of my short films! (I’d written that script myself, too, just to be clear.)

It’s the age-old tale of a demon tempting a person with power and riches… Except that the demon is an AI (what else?) and it’s in space and they’re both women (or women-presenting, in any case).

I took more care than usual with it, but after six drafts (and at 2,483 words) it’s ready to send out, eh.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment