As of this writing, the Nebula Awards Conference just wrapped up! It was a fun event, and it felt like a real celebration of genre. The vibe of the conference inspired us to do a collective interview with the Nebula Awards finalists in the Short Fiction category. SFWA (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) is an organization of writers, and through their votes they have deemed the works by these authors to be among the finest published last year. That makes this a great group of authors to ask a few questions about writing, reading, the publishing industry, and more.
Each author was sent the same seven questions and asked to answer at least four. Each individual could answer whichever questions they liked. The timing didn’t work out with Suzan Palumbo—she had too many commitments to participate; luckily she appears in a collective interview we ran in our Feb. 2022 issue.
We hope you find the responses as interesting as we do!
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor & publisher from Nigeria. He has won the Nebula, Otherwise, Nommo, British, and World Fantasy awards and been a finalist in the Hugo, Locus, Sturgeon, British Science Fiction, and NAACP Image awards. His works have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Uncanny Magazine, Tor.com, and other places. He edited the Bridging Worlds and The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthologies and co-edited the Dominion and Africa Risen anthologies. He was a CanCon GoH and a guest of honour at the Afrofuturism themed ICFA 44, where he coined a new term/genre label, Afropantheology. You can pre-order his forthcoming, debut collection at arcmanorbooks.com/africa.
Your short story “Destiny Delayed” [Asimov’s, May/June 2022] was a Nebula finalist, selected by SFWA members as one of the best pieces of fiction from the year! CONGRATULATIONS! That is amazing. What was the initial inspiration, and how did the piece change or evolve over drafting?
ODE: I wrote it in one draft and barely edited it after. It was inspired by a practice in Southern Nigeria where children are given away to cover bad debts and loans their family members can no longer pay. There’s a similar practice in Northern Nigeria of child brides. The story is generally inspired by the need to examine these issues and the ways that birthing bodies are held hostage and exploited for profit. It’s also inspired by climate change and the practices that exacerbate it, how the future and destinies of future people is mortgaged for profit now.
What, for you, are the most challenging craft elements in writing short fiction, and how do you deal with those challenges?
ODE: Pacing. Showing all the elements needed within the appropriate length, without bogging the story down and giving away too much.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to readers, and separately, one piece of advice you’d give to writers who are just starting out?
ODE: For readers, read the story that’s there, not the one you want. And if you really want a particular story, then write it, if you can’t find it. But don’t blame a writer for not writing the story you want. For writers, you can do this. There’s no talent or magic to this. Just the work. You got this.
What are some of your favorite works or authors that use fantastic elements (from the past or more recent, whichever you’d like to talk about), and what do you like most about them?
ODE: “The Name Equations.” You know the famous “Cold Equations” story? [“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin, Astounding Magazine, August 1954] This one is about names, sex, sexuality, transness, and other related things. It’s currently unpublished.
How has publishing short fiction been for you—did you sell stories right away, was there a period of submissions and rejections and trunked work?
ODE: I had hundreds of rejections and didn’t sell for many years. I stayed at it, worked my way up to a sale, a pro one from a small pro mag, and recently got into Asimov’s with this my Nebula finalist story, and more recently F&SF. I’m waiting to add Analog to it and cap it up.
For readers who haven’t read your work, what would you like them to know about this story, or about any of your other stories?
ODE: My stories aren’t for everybody. It’s okay to not read me. But if you want something deep and true, that can affect the substance of our reality, the politics of existing for marginalized people, you should give it a shot.
If readers were to read one piece of short fiction by you, from your entire body of work to-date, what would it be (and why); AND! If they were to read one short story by someone else, what story would you want them to read (and, of course, why)?
ODE: For me, this story in Asimov’s “Destiny Delayed,” that’s a Nebula finalist. It’s a stage of my writing I am currently proud of. It says the things I want, in a form and style that suits it. For someone else’s story, I’d recommend Tlotlo Tsamaase’s “District To Cervix: the Time Before We Were Born” [Prisms, PS Publishing; reprinted in The Year’s Best African Fiction 2022]. It’s a bold, strong, powerful story that is just as well written as the story it tells.
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Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, a Nebula and Locus Award finalist, and an immigrant from Fujian. She is a member of HWA, SFWA, and Codex. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, and Uncanny, among other places. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop’s 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of Linghun and I AM AI. Find her on Twitter (@AiJiang_) and online (aijiang.ca).
Your short story “Give Me English” [F&SF, May-June 2022] was a Nebula finalist, selected by SFWA members as one of the best pieces of fiction from the year! CONGRATULATIONS! That is amazing. What was the initial inspiration, and how did the piece change or evolve over drafting?
AJ: “Give Me English” started with the idea of a society that uses language as currency, not unlike our own, in a way. It was inspired by musings about how we capitalize on language, the way language is manipulated and used against others in the form of jargon and specialized speech, the way knowing more languages offers us more power because we are able to communicate more widely and connect with people from different backgrounds more fluently. But it was also inspired by how language and culture impact one another, and to lose language is also to lose cultural connection. The piece evolved through revision: how language use manifested in the world, how language could change economic landscapes like the job market, casinos, contracting, childcare and such. But I intend on further exploring the piece in novel length, as there is still much to unpack when thinking about language as currency and its implications.
What, for you, are the most challenging craft elements in writing short fiction, and how do you deal with those challenges?
AJ: Everything, unexaggeratedly. There are so many elements and tools I need to keep in mind when writing short fiction, and more often than not, I need to work all these elements into a single sentence. But if I were to pick one, I would say trying to draw out the emotionality of the piece and create further character struggle. I used to keep in mind the question of “how can I make things worse for the character?” but recently, I’ve been more worried about writing the character into a corner and not knowing how to get them out. One thing I’ve been trying to revisit, in hopes it might help me overcome this issue, is analyzing high-stakes plotlines to work them into the stories I intend on having as more fast-paced reads, rather than more psychological musings.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to readers, and separately, one piece of advice you’d give to writers who are just starting out?
AJ: One piece of advice I’d give to readers is to always keep an open mind, push your limits of disbelief, trust writers and their ability to bring you on a journey. For writers, I’d say to trust readers more in their ability to understand the world you’re trying to present them, but do not be resistant to revision and tossing out the darlings necessary to make a piece stronger—gut instinct is almost always right.
What are some of your favorite works or authors that use fantastic elements (from the past or more recent, whichever you’d like to talk about), and what do you like most about them?
AJ: One of my favourite authors is Kazuo Ishiguro, who has the ability to use elements of the fantastic but make them feel very much like reality through his storytelling and resonant themes. But the piece that stuck with me most is Beloved by Toni Morrison, who was able to create endless haunting through the dark fantastic in the form of manifestations of trauma and the concept of “rememory.”
How has publishing short fiction been for you—did you sell stories right away, was there a period of submissions and rejections and trunked work?
AJ: I did sell stories right away, but I’d started small, with non-paying and token markets before moving my way up. But I’ve received far more rejections than one might expect—about 1500+ submissions sent and close to equal number of rejections since late 2020. On the number of trunked works, there aren’t that many. I’ve been quite persistent in trying to place my work, with the highest number of rejections I’d received on a single piece being 89.
For readers who haven’t read your work, what would you like them to know about this story, or about any of your other stories?
AJ: I am a very chaotic writer, both when it comes to writing processes and the types of things I write. I’m a fan of experimentation, genre-blending, and much of my work is rooted in exploring the Asian diaspora. But most of all, I’m quite the idea-driven writer—both in this story and others I write—and I think that’s quite evident to readers who have been following me for a while.
If readers were to read one piece of short fiction by you, from your entire body of work to-date, what would it be (and why); AND! If they were to read one short story by someone else, what story would you want them to read (and, of course, why)?
AJ: I’d say “Give Me English”, because it’s the story that’s closest to my heart. And I’d highly recommend “Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” by Isabel J. Kim [Clarkesworld, March 2021]. It’s one of the first stories I’d ever read outside of university when I first started writing shorts myself, and it’s the one that has stuck with me ever since.
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Samantha Mills is a Nebula Award winning SFF author living in Southern California. She has published a dozen short stories since 2018, appearing in Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod and other places. Her work has also been included in the best-of anthology The New Voices of Science Fiction and the forthcoming Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023. Her debut novel, tentatively titled The Rise and Fall of Winged Zemolai, is coming out in 2024 through Tachyon Publications. You can find more at samtasticbooks.com.
Your short story “Rabbit Test” [Uncanny, November-December 2022] won the Nebula Award for short fiction! CONGRATULATIONS! That is amazing. What was the initial inspiration, and how did the piece change or evolve over drafting?
SM: I learned about rabbit tests in a “Today I Learned”-type of post (“TIL that in the 1950s laboratories injected urine into rabbits to find out if someone was pregnant!!”), and I immediately put it in my idea notebook. It sat there for years. I’d prod at it once in a while but couldn’t find an actual story to go with it. And then in May 2022, a draft of the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked, and I found myself obsessively reading articles on abortion, threats against birth control, catastrophes already taking place in healthcare. I was arming myself up for arguments and researching abortion funds with my friends. I realized I did have something to say about rabbit tests after all, and the story came together over the course of a month, evolving as I found bits of history I wanted to include.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to readers, and separately, one piece of advice you’d give to writers who are just starting out?
SM: To readers: Don’t just rely on social media for reading recommendations. Sample a lot of different magazines—you may be surprised to find new favorites to come back to! There are so many hidden gems that don’t get the magical combo of right boost/right time that launches some stories into the online conversation.
To SFF writers: It may be cliché for me to say, but read widely! Read new SFF releases so you know what’s going on these days, but also works in entirely different genres—lit fic, romance, nonfiction, mysteries, thrillers, memoirs, weird hard-to-categorize comedies—so you can study a variety of forms and find ways to bring fresh structures and perspectives back to your work.
What are some of your favorite works or authors that use fantastic elements (from the past or more recent, whichever you’d like to talk about), and what do you like most about them?
SM: I could be here all day. Some of my favorite authors working in fantastical short fiction right now are Eugenia Triantafyllou, Aimee Ogden, Jenny Rae Rappaport, Suzan Palumbo, Catherynne M. Valente, R.S.A. Garcia, Caroline M. Yoachim, Carmen Maria Machado, Maria Haskins, John Wiswell, Jennifer Hudak, P.H. Lee, Alix Harrow, Kij Johnson, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Marissa Lingen, A.T. Greenblatt, Cassandra Khaw, Vanessa Fogg, Stephanie Malia Morris . . . and surely more that I’ll kick myself tomorrow for forgetting!
Luckily, I can keep this answer from getting any longer because what I like most about them is the same: they combine vivid concepts with writing that makes me feel something.
How has publishing short fiction been for you—did you sell stories right away, was there a period of submissions and rejections and trunked work?
SM: I made a brief attempt at selling short fiction after college (around 2009 to 2012), and even had a couple of pieces printed in token markets. I quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing! My rejections were nearly all the same: “I like the writing, but . . . ” But . . . there was no story. I was writing five-thousand-word scenes and not understanding how to make them do anything.
So I stopped submitting entirely to focus on reading more, studying more, practicing more. I gave myself space to do this solely for myself, without worrying about external goals like publishing. Over the next few years, my attempts at novels improved rapidly, but short stories remained a mystery until 2017. I can’t fully describe what happened, but after a lot of reading it finally clicked, and I produced a few stories that worked, and I finally began submitting again. I made my first sale to a pro market four months later, and another two months after that.
All that said, it’s still hit or miss for me! I like to experiment with form, and my experiments don’t always work, so I trunk as much as I send out. But I’ve gotten better at knowing whether I’ve got something promising on my hands. It’s not perfect, but I’ll take it!
If readers were to read one piece of short fiction by you, from your entire body of work to-date, what would it be (and why); AND! If they were to read one short story by someone else, what story would you want them to read (and, of course, why)?
SM: “Strange Waters” in Strange Horizons. This was the second pro story I sold (but first released!) and I am still really proud of it. This was my short-form writing breakthrough, the first time I felt like I packed all the big sweeping drama that I love in novels into the limited space of a short story.
And I’d like to shout out an older favorite of mine from 2017, “Regarding the Robot Raccoons Attached to the Hull of My Ship” by Rachael K. Jones and Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali in Diabolical Plots. I just love sister feelings, all right? It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s clever, and it put a big smile on my face.
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Ian Muneshwar is a Nebula and Locus Award-nominated writer and a 2022 recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Diversity Grant. His short fiction appears in venues such as Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Nightmare, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, and We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2022. He has taught writing through Brandeis University, Tufts University, and Clarion West. Ian lives in Boston with his partner and a host of potted nightshades.
Your short story “Dick Pig” [Nightmare, January 2022] was a Nebula finalist, selected by SFWA members as one of the best pieces of fiction from the year! CONGRATULATIONS! That is amazing. What was the initial inspiration for your finalist story, and how did the piece change or evolve over drafting?
IM: “Dick Pig” was one of the rare stories that changed very little from its initial conception. Starting out, I knew I wanted to write about the sexual impulse toward destruction, and I knew I wanted to write a home invasion story. When I hit on Grindr—with its geopositioning and photo sharing capabilities—as the method of the invasion, the story really took off.
What, for you, are the most challenging craft elements in writing short fiction, and how do you deal with those challenges?
IM: Every new story is its own set of challenges. With “Dick Pig”, part of the challenge was finding the right voice. I’m not usually a very voice-driven writer, so this took some initial stopping-and-starting as I retooled the opening scene until I found Edwin’s particular brand of snide anxiety.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to readers, and separately, one piece of advice you’d give to writers who are just starting out?
IM: For readers—read widely. If you only read fiction, pick up Robert Macfarlane. If you only read nonfiction, find a Warsan Shire collection. For new writers—don’t be afraid of what you love in the work. Lean into whatever it is that drives you to write, and let that carry you through as many drafts and as many projects as you can bear.
What are some of your favorite works or authors that use fantastic elements (from the past or more recent, whichever you’d like to talk about), and what do you like most about them?
IM: Naben Ruthnum’s Helpmeet (Undertow) is a beautiful bit of character work and an excellent example of the novella form; Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko (Harper Voyager) is one of my favorite examples of playing with narrative structure in order to reflect a character’s interiority; Alice Sola Kim’s short fiction is inevitably surprising, playful, and upsetting.
Finally, Kate Milford’s middle-grade mystery novel Greenglass House (Clarion) is, to my mind, a perfect book—it has a setting you want to get lost in, a whodunit plot worthy of any Agatha Christie novel, and a group of characters who charm and chill you in equal measure.
How has publishing short fiction been for you—did you sell stories right away, was there a period of submissions and rejections and trunked work?
IM: When I started writing seriously, I made two very quick pro sales and foolishly thought that this was how submitting work would always go. It was not. I then went through an eighteen-month period of getting rejection on top of rejection as I scrambled to produce something that might actually sell. Slowly, I found a viewpoint that felt like my own. Since then, my short fiction has sold more routinely (though there are still plenty of rejections—we never truly escape them).
If readers were to read one piece of short fiction by you, from your entire body of work to-date, what would it be (and why); AND! If they were to read one short story by someone else, what story would you want them to read (and, of course, why)?
IM: Honestly, I do think “Dick Pig” is a good starting place when it comes to my published fiction. If you want to read something of mine that’s not (exclusively) set in a Very Bad House, I’d suggest “Skins Smooth as Plantain, Hearts Soft as Mango” [The Dark, August 2017]
When it comes to other recommendations—I have too many. I will always suggest Kai Ashante Wilson’s “The Devil in America” [Tor.com April 2014] which, for me, is one of the most ambitious and underrated pieces of horror published in the last decade. I also just read Nathan Ballingrud’s collection North American Lake Monsters (Small Beer) and was bowled over by the opening story, “You Go Where It Takes You”—it’s rare to read such a perfectly crafted ending.
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John Wiswell is a queer writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He is a Nebula and Locus winner and a Hugo finalist. His fiction has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. His debut novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, is due out from DAW Books in 2024.
Your short story “D.I.Y” [Tor.com, August 2022] was a Nebula finalist, selected by SFWA members as one of the best pieces of fiction from the year! CONGRATULATIONS! That is amazing . What was the initial inspiration, and how did the piece change or evolve over drafting?
JW: As education changes and access to information opens up, I wanted to explore how magical learning would change, too. One of the first things that came to mind is all the people who want higher education but are kept out because of money, like disabled kids trying to survive in our healthcare dystopia. That anger is a common part of my life as a disabled man who mentors disabled kids. They deserve magic, too.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to readers, and separately, one piece of advice you’d give to writers who are just starting out?
JW: We’re in a hard period for short fiction. Amazon is killing subscription services that many magazines rely on, and scammers using AI tools are flooding places like Clarkesworld in the vain hope for a quick buck. Life was never easy, but it’s harder than ever for a writer to get by, and for a magazine to stay afloat. My strongest recommendation is to read widely and be loud about what you enjoy. So much work is free to read online, so the barrier is lower to browse. Tweet at writers and editors. Share stories you loved on Reddit and Instagram. As you’re honing your own craft, keep track of who likes what you like. Maybe you can help them out. Maybe they’ll publish you later, but honestly, if they just publish stuff that inspires you to get through the day right now, then you already won. The community is at its best when we celebrate together.
What are some of your favorite works or authors that use fantastic elements (from the past or more recent, whichever you’d like to talk about), and what do you like most about them?
JW: Who doesn’t love Kelly Link and Ted Chiang? I love their work so much that when I found out they were friends it brightened my whole day. Nobody can turn something into a story as adeptly as Aimee Picchi, even if it’s just search results. I’ll also drop just about anything to read a new story by Eugenia Triantafyllou, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, and Carlie St. George. Carlie has such an intimate knowledge of where human hearts can grow in fields of horror tropes. Sarah Pinsker is a wizard at weaving characterization and personality through any worldbuilding, so it never feels static. Avi Burton and J.L. Akagi are emerging talents whose work is already so full of humanity, but you know they’re just going to keep blowing up. The field is just too great. If you asked me tomorrow, I’d have a whole other list of luminaries. It makes me giddy.
How has publishing short fiction been for you—did you sell stories right away, was there a period of submissions and rejections and trunked work?
JW: Oh God no. *laughs* I’m pretty public about what a struggle it’s been getting here. Before I won my first Nebula Award, I received more than 800 rejections for various stories. To some degree the short fiction community became more accepting of the queer characters and themes of disability that I write. To some degree, it felt like I was proving that other things—like building a story toward heartwarming events—were stuff that readers wanted at all. But I’ve been called too weird to survive ever since I was a kid. This industry can be excruciatingly hard to persist in. Part of my job, as someone who’s made it a little ways up the ladder, is to encourage others not to quit climbing.
For readers who haven’t read your work, what would you like them to know about this story, or about any of your other stories?
JW: Like a lot of my stories, this one centers disabled characters whose lives aren’t fixed by living in magical worlds. Things don’t become fair because a few wizards can snap their fingers and summon lightning. We have our adventures, make bad puns, and are just as flawed as anybody, but no more flawed than anybody. Our disabilities aren’t our conflict, and they aren’t substitutions for personalities. Remembering that is the real magic spell.
If readers were to read one piece of short fiction by you, from your entire body of work to-date, what would it be (and why); AND! If they were to read one short story by someone else, what story would you want them to read (and, of course, why)?
JW: Most people enjoy beginning with my story “Open House on Haunted Hill” [Diabolical Plots, June 2020] about a haunted house so lonely it promises to behave if anybody will live in it. It gets at the heart of a lot of my work. I never get tired of hearing responses to it. Meanwhile, if I was to force someone else’s story into your hands and beg you to read it? Gabriel García Márquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” [Published in 1967 or 68 in Spanish as El ahogado más hermoso del mundo and translated into English for 1972 collection Leaf Storm and other stories. Available to read for free at lithub.com.] is almost mythologically important to me. It follows a small seaside town that finds a drowned sailor washed up on their shore, and with no way to find out where he came from, they give him the funeral they wish all their lost loved ones could have had. Márquez uses so many tools that I’m intimidated to approach in order to tell us how humanity can process loss as a group.