"The V*mpire" wins Transfeminine Review Reader's Choice Award, nominated for a Nebula award
Hi Everyone—
No new story this time, but wanted to give some updates about The V*mpire, which I’m very happy has resonated with a lot of people. I’m really happy to say that it has received some awards attention.
Firstly, The V*mpire won “Outstanding Short Story” in the inaugural Transfeminine Review Reader’s Choice Awards. The Transfeminine Review is a project spearheaded by Bethany Karsten to recognize, critique, and promulgate literature by transfeminine authors. I think it’s a fantastic project and I think she’s doing great work. I have often struggled (due to both internal and external factors) with publishing explicitly trans fiction, so it is extremely gratifying to be recognized in that space, and it is a unique honor to be the first person to win a specific award. (Also: I hope you will take this opportunity to read some of the many other authors in the TFRRC award lists. There is so much good work there.)
Secondly, The V*mpire was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Short Story. This is my second Nebula Award nomination, and my first in this category, (Just Enough Rain was nominated for Best Novelette in 2022). I’m very happy that the story spoke to so many other authors. This year’s nominees are extremely high quality (if you haven’t read Why Don’t We Just Kill The Kid in the Omelas Hole, go read it right away!) and it’s an honor to be counted among them.
I have a bunch of people to thank for their help with this story—first and foremost my editor at Reactor, Mal Frazier, who fought for the story so many times, in so many ways. Ann Leckie, Rachel Swirsky, and Carmen Maria Machado, who supported it when I was struggling with whether to publish it at all. My Clarion West classmates, who both offered their incisive, personal comments and protected it from bad critique. AJ Luxton and Ori Jay, my expert readers. My anonymous friend who, when I said I wasn’t sure I wanted to publish it, offered to privately circulate it to “people who need to read it.”
If you read the story, shared it, liked it, thank you so much. Likewise, if you read the warnings at the front and said “not for me,” thank you for that as well.
Current projects and a forthcoming story
I am still deep in a bunch of slow-moving projects that I’m not allowed to talk about publicly. However, I do have a forthcoming story: Reactor will be publishing Timelike Curves; Spacelike Curves, my novelette about a dysfunctional relationship and general relativity, in January 2026. I pitched this one to Mal as “not gay as in happy but queer as in ‘unsettling and strange,’” which is about as good a summary as I can manage. I am looking forward to getting to share it with you.
Hopefully I’ll have more news before January 2026, but if not, I will see you then.
Amazing! Congrats on the nomination!