I had a handful of original stories published this year, but many of them very, very short. So it’s no surprise my personal favourite and best candidate this year is a flash as well:

“Birding With My Human” hatched in Nature Futures in July, and I’d be thrilled if you considered it for awards & noms. Thank you!

It is eligible for Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards (and possibly others) in the Short Story category.

The setting in the story is based on a real location (a lake and a bird tower) and much of the story was inspired by my own birding experiences.

You can read the story here (SF, 980 words)

Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews said some nice things about my Headless-Horseman-inspired flash, “When the Head Comes Knocking,” which appeared in PodCastle last month. He called it “cute and funny” as well as a “fine read!”

Thank you, Charles!

You can read the review here

PodCastle episode 701 is here which means my story, a little flash tale inspired by the Headless Horseman, is out! You can listen & read “When the Head Comes Knocking” on the PodCastle website or get the episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and Stitcher.

I’m so grateful to editor Craig Jackson for picking this story and to Srikripa Krishna Prasad for beautifully narrating it. And of course very excited to see this story out in the world. It’s my first story in PodCastle and the second time something of mine has been turned into audio. Enjoy!

As the nights darken and the Halloween season draws near, I have a new flash in Lit Up called “Hell of a Hound.” I hope you like it!

I have a story in the forest-themed September issue of Flash Fiction Online. “Beneath Her Sweet Roots” is a reprint which originally came out in a small litmag called The Mad River. I’m very excited to get this story in front of new readers. Thank you, Executive & Reprint Editor Samantha L. Strong, for choosing it for publication!

The story will be free to read on Flash Fiction Online‘s website on September 24th, or you can support the magazine and grab the issue now—it’s available on Amazon, Weightless Books, and directly from the publisher.

Another microfic of mine is up on Stupefying Stories, “The Summer of Phoenix Spotting.”

The story was inspired by this hot, hot summer, at least it has been here in Finland. The prompt for the 100-word flash challenge run by Pete Wood was “it’s too darn hot.”

You can also read several other tiny stories from different authors written using the same prompt on the Stupefying Stories blog.

I’ve got a new microfic up on Stupefying Stories, “First Date Magic.”

This was quite a challenge to write, literally. Based on a prompt by Pete Wood, the story had to be max 107 words long and contain the phrase, “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t our waiter.” A lot harder than I first thought, but I think I did all right.

You can read six other authors’ stories for the challenge on the site as well, each very different.

Exciting news! I have a brand new story out today in Nature Futures, “Birding With My Human.” This story combines my love of birds, birdwatching, and jumbled thoughts and feelings about both the benefit and overwhelming presence of technology in our lives.

You can read more about the inspiration behind the story on the Nature website. In a nutshell, the setting where the story takes place is real—the lake, the tower, the birds.

The story is free to read online here. It’ll also be in the digital version of Nature: Volume 595 Issue 7866, 8 July 2021.

Thank you for reading!

Two of my stories were recently featured on #sfstoryoftheday, a daily story recommendation curated by M.A. Blanchard on Twitter: “The Bones and Their Girl” on June 14th and “Forestborn” on June 26th.

My interview with Jen Gheller at Luna Station Quarterly is out today.

I talk about the inspiration behind my short story “Forestborn,” my writing process, and hares.