Monday, July 31, 2023

Transfer, Emphasis On Trans

I am very proud to say my story "Transfer, Emphasis On Trans" is now available in Mirrors Reflecting Shadows, proceeds benefiting The Trevor Project.

It's set in a futuristic world where Freaky Friday style body swaps are commonly offered services.

When a trans man swaps bodies so he can properly experience society as a man before transitioning, he expects it to last 24 hours. Little does Alexander know, the person he swapped with was in trouble and got himself—and Alexander's original body—killed.

Now he's stuck in the perfect body—and in the middle of an investigation.

When I wrote this story, I didn’t realize I was trans. I just thought everyone had a little bit of gender dysphoria from time to time.

That was in 2017.

Since then, this story has collected almost 20 rejections and almost as many different titles and editing passes. And every time I edited it, it felt a little more familiar, a little more personal.

And that's because I'm non-binary.

While this story overall is one of hope and gender affirmation, please be aware the main character's family is not affirming of his gender or name with the exception of his sister.

Thursday, July 6, 2023

The Horsepower Whisperer

 I am very proud to announce I have another story published in the amazing Brave New Girls series of anthologies. This one is "The Horsepower Whisper," available in Brave New Girls: Tales Of Girls Who Engineer And Explore!

My story is a steampunk tale about a family struggling to keep their farm profitable while recovering from the death of the mother.

The main character, Katie, is trying to follow in her mother's dancing footsteps, but instead of practicing her routine, she's trying to help her father and younger sister with the farm. She decides what they really need is a horse, so she buys a broken down mechanical one and tries to fix him up in secret.

There's one scene in this story that I struggled with writing, because in my mind, it needed to be a music montage set to the Hall and Oates song "You Make My Dreams Come True" and I just couldn't figure out how to write that for the longest time.

I hope you enjoy my story, although please be aware it does deal with grief of losing a mother to cancer.