So I guess the year just ends in November now? I mean, why the fuck not, I guess, right? It’s all travel and gift-giving and phoning it in from here on out.
Fun fact: when I was writing more regularly for various internet news sites, the six weeks between Thanksgiving through the end of the year basically didn’t exist. Traffic dried up like a dog turd in the desert, so pitches and features were not necessary. No one was online. News was — and presumably still is — minimal and, save for a few feel-good holiday posts (usually written well in advance), there was/is little demand for Writing Stuff.
All of which is to say, enjoy this farewell summary to 2023 now, in the middle of November, because I am going to try very hard not to be online for the next six weeks, and possibly after. I’ll be spending the winter rethinking my digital footprint, specifically Twitter and Substack. Both of those platforms are increasingly courting white supremacists and other assorted assholes, and, well, you know the saying: if there are six people sitting at a table and one of them’s a Nazi, and nobody says anything or leaves, then there’s six Nazis sitting at a table.
I’ll also be working on Atomic Carnival Books, Year Two during my online sabbatical, for pretty much the same reason. Plus, y’know, money. If it isn’t A.I. isn’t stealing our jobs, it’s corporate “downsizing” and changing reader trends, and, as a result, freelancing the way I used to is becoming wildly precarious. Nevermind trying to write about cartoons and video games when there’s, what, three active genocides happening right now? Trying to live in the End Times is fun!
End of Year Writing Round-Up / Eligibility Post
Here’s everything I wrote this year. 2023 has been my best year for fiction in quite some time, and also included what I’m pretty sure is my first semi-pro sale — I sold my first story in 2006, which is like a thousand years ago, so forgive my memory — and definitely my first pro sale to From Beyond Press. But the anthology, Escalators to Hell, isn’t coming out until next year, so we’re gonna breeze right by that one for the moment.
Anyway, if you’re reading for an award or compiling a list or whatever, please consider the below. Stories available to read online are linked, stories available to purchase are also linked, and .pdfs can be provided for any or all as needed.
Fiction, as Author
“One More Time Around,” Starlite Pulp Review, December 2022
This one technically came out last year, but in December, which is really this year (see above) so I included it, just in case. It’s a pulpy cyberpunk noir with a grizzled, semi-immortal detective, and the first story set in the city/universe of Los Fantasmas.
“The Bounty We Are About to Receive,” Hearth & Coffin, March 2023
This one’s another Los Fantasmas story, and also a retelling of a Norse myth about an eating contest, because Norse myths are the fucking best.
“Starblossom,” The Rumen, April 2023
Full disclosure: I really love “Starblossom.” It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, but it really hasn’t gotten a lot of traction, both before and after publication. It’s kind of a nihilistic anti-corporate fairy tale, but it’s also kind of beautiful? To me, anyway, and maybe to you, too!
“No More Wars Left to Fight,” Impossible Worlds, June 2023
This one is probably the only piece of military sci-fi I’ve ever written, but it’s not really about that. It’s more meditative, and mostly about trauma and letting go of your past. But there are explosions and aliens, so.
“Part of a Balanced Breakfast,” Soul Jar, Forest Avenue Press, October 2023
I remain kind of amazed that “Part of a Balanced Breakfast” got published, nevermind that people seem to really like it. It even got singled out in a Publishers Weekly review of the anthology! Anyway, It’s a horror-comedy about loneliness, transplant, trauma, and how to summon an extradimensional cereal-box mascot.
“Untethered,” Greater Than His Nature, Atomic Carnival Books, October 2023
So, first, I published this anthology and included my own story, so this is kind of, technically, self-published. But it’s a pretty good story, I think. It’s about a guy trying so hard to outrun his past — in this case, transplant, trauma, his old life, and an ex that he’s hung up on — that he invents time travel. Things, naturally, get complicated.
Fiction, as Editor
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Greater Than His Nature, Atomic Carnival Books, October 2023
A sci-fi/horror anthology featuring 20 short stories based around the theme of “mad science,” all of which are also eligible individually. It’s not a disabled anthology, but also it kind of is.
Greater Than His Nature features new work from Tyler Battaglia, Samantha H. Chung, Katharine Duckett, Jonathan Fortin, Brianna Nicole Frentzko, A.T. Greenblatt, Josh Hanson, Wade Hunter, M.W. Irving, Pooja Joshi, Andrew Kozma, Ally Malinenko, K.L. Mill, Lena Ng, Robert Perez, Zachary Rosenberg, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Violet Schwegler, Nicole M. Wolverton, and, as mentioned above, myself.
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Open All Night, Atomic Carnival Books, October 2023
A horror/dark fantasy anthology featuring 17 short stories based around the themes of “open all night” and the terror of retail/service work. All stories are eligible individually. “The Clover Café” by Amanda Cecelia Lang originally appeared on the Tales to Terrify podcast, but was not previously in print.
Open All Night includes stories from Megan Kiekel Anderson, Russ Bickerstaff, Tom Brennan, Lydia Bugg, Nathan Crowder, Laura Garrison, Shanna Germain, Elena Greer, Rik Hoskin, L.S. Johnson, Amanda Cecelia Lang, Steve Loiaconi, J.A.W. McCarthy, Zachary Rosenberg, Danger Slater, Bailee Smith-Garcia, and Patrick Tumblety.
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Non-Fiction
“On Being a Real-Life Frankenstein,” Bodies, Uncensored, Keeping It Under Wraps, April 2023
This is an essay about life after transplant, and, specifically, feeling like a stranger in your own body and a shambling monster to those around you.
“Was Community’s ‘Gas Leak’ Season Really That Bad?” Den of Geek, February 2023
“The Shakespearean Roots of Star Trek,” Den of Geek, May 2023
These are both what they say on the tin, and I don’t think either are actually eligible for any awards, but I figured I’d include them anyway, for the sake of thoroughness and consistency.
End of Year Health Round-Up / What’s Wrong With Eirik Now? Post
The Lungs
OK, so, first off, my lungs are fine. Not great, not bad, just fine. Everything I’m about to write is going to sound bad, because medical terminology really loves the doom and gloom, but I’m fine.
We’ve known for a while that I have chronic rejection of my new lungs and that their functionality is (very) slowly eroding. But what I’ve only recently been piecing together is that chronic rejection is the umbrella term. Chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) is a kind of chronic rejection, divided into two subcategories, of which bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) is one, which I have. Doctors use all three terms interchangeably without ever explaining the difference, so it’s confusing.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that my lungs are scarring, causing a drop in my lung function. I’m hovering around 65% which is, again, fine. Shortness of breath is becoming a bit of a problem, but some of that’s my sinuses, and some of that’s deconditioning, which I’ll get to in a bit.
The actual problem is that there’s no real treatment for CR/CLAD/BOS, because no one used to live long enough after transplant for it to be an issue, so, uh, that’s fun. One of my doctors — but, notably, not all — wants to start me on photopheresis next year, but I am less than thrilled by the prospect.
Essentially, on a weekly basis, my blood will be removed from me, cycled through a machine that bathes it in ultraviolet light and soy particles or something, and then returned to me, better than before. Which, cool, except going into a hospital for four hours every fucking week — a hospital that has gleefully given up on COVID precautions and, therefore, all contagion precautions — for at least a year during an ongoing fucking pandemic — will probably kill me on its own, or at least give me the flu a couple times. And getting an infection is what started this whole chronic-rejection ball rolling, so, y’know, not my favorite option.
Alternatives — and I’m using that term loosely — include a combination of exercise and luck. As always, my lung function is the deciding factor in this, and, as of my last clinic visit, I was able to turn things around and start trending upward again. (We’re talking, like, tenths of a liter here, so don’t get too excited; the entire trajectory of my future hangs on fucking fractions.) Theoretically, if I just keep being active (and lucky), I can avoid the whole blood-cycling/pathogen-hell thing, except …
The Brain
When last we checked in on my brain, the fluid in my skull was low, and, as a result, my brain was dry and sagging (a.k.a. intracranial hypotension) due to a hole in my spinal fluid containment unit (a.k.a. a cerebrospinal fluid leak). This caused migraines and other abominable headaches and was considered, generally, Not Good. Thinking, remembering, and focusing were also taking a noticeable hit, even when I didn’t have a headache. It’s made writing for a living even more of a challenge than usual, and everything I did get done this year kind of amazing.
Anyway, a few scans and a chat with a specialist later, however, and … well, we’re still right where we were.
The updated prognosis/best guess is that my spinal fluid isn’t so much leaking as being diverted into a vein, a.k.a. a venous fistula. What we’d previously thought was a hole in the dam is more like a brand-new babbling brook. As a result, I’ve been expressly forbid from being active, because stretching or breathing too hard could exacerbate things — which, in this case, means my brain could start bleeding. And, I don’t know if you know this, but brain bleeding is a problem.
The good news is (a) I can’t find a link or any further information for the brain bleeding thing online, so it’s hopefully a very uncommon worst-case scenario, and (b) I’ve literally been prescribed coffee and soda as an intermediary treatment. Caffeine is good for headaches generally, and also facilitates the production of cerebrospinal fluid. So, theoretically, if I can get enough going, the bit branching off is less of a problem.
The bad news is that not being able to do anything isn’t great for the rest of my health. I was already a little out of shape and not doing enough — the medical term for which is “deconditioning” if you want to make your laziness sound official — but add the threat of a cerebral hemorrhage and you better believe I’m doing even less.
I’m heading out to Stanford in February for several more scans to confirm and try to pinpoint specifically where the issue is — all those other scans have, hilariously, been inconclusive — and then, hopefully, it’ll finally get fixed. Either by a complicated surgical procedure to tie off the vein or the much simpler but new technique of clotting the fucker up.
In Conclusion
I don’t actually have a conclusion, it just seemed rude to pull an Irish goodbye after talking about spinal surgery. But, uh, please read some of my stories, buy some of my books, and maybe include them in all your Best Of lists and awards. I know my bylines aren’t the most eye-catching — there’s nary and F&SF or Uncanny among them — but there’s a lot of great work going on in the indie publishing world that gets ignored in favor of the big names. If my stuff isn’t your speed, someone else’s surely will be. Give the little guys a chance.
Have a merry whatever you’re doing this winter. See you in 2024.
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