Nudity is Only Skin-Deep

I'm gonna share a bunch of my writing resources with you. These are things I check frequently, and have helped me with my publications.

The Submission Grinder: I find this one a little tricky to use, but it's very helpful for looking up magazines by pay rate, genre, etc.

Submittable: Invaluable resource. I track my submissions here. Membership is free, and you can find all sorts of calls for submissions, contests, fellowships, and more. The downside is there is no way to search for paying magazines only, and there are no ways to filter out magazines you don't want to see.

Chill Subs: A lot of people swear by this resource, and the folks running it seem like good people doing this as a passion project. They also have a mailing list which includes special calls for submissions as well as writing workshops.

Authortunities: You can sign up for the mailing list to get a curated list of magazines/anthologies seeking submissions. The free version is all you need. The paid version shows a bit more stuff from the next month, but that will show up in the next free email. Friendly community, too.

Writing & Selling Stories with Angelique Fawns: Various writing resources for novels and short stories. Also includes interviews with authors and a curated monthly list of upcoming calls for submissions--mostly speculative.

Moksha: A list of magazines and anthologies seeking submissions. Primarily speculative fiction/poetry. I've had several pieces published through this.

Query Tracker: A place to track literary agent queries and to find which agents are open to submissions.

The Horror Tree: Not just horror. Covers speculative fiction in general. Has craft essays, calls for submissions, writing prompts, book reviews, and more.

Write, Publish, Shine: Run by the wonderful, super-supportive editor Rachel Thompson, this is a writing community and publishing school. I took her Lit Mag Love course, and it's what really got me organized and turned into a publishing machine.

Community of Literary Magazines and Presses Calls for Submissions: A bit of a pig in a poke, really. I've found a few good things here, but it also includes magazines which charge you money in order for you to submit work, and it doesn't say if this is the case in the listings. A bit of a pain in the arse, in that regard.

Canadian Authors Awards and Competitions: Not just for Canadian authors. Listing is by deadline, and entry fees and prize amounts are shown prominently.

Publishing... and Other Forms of Insanity: Terrific resource with lists of paying markets, free competitions, residencies, and more.

Science Fiction Poetry Association: Lists paying magazines which do not charge you money to submit your speculative poetry.

Literary Outlets for Environmental Writing: Some of the places listed are no longer around, but still is the best (and only) list I've seen for this genre.

Aswiebe's Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Market Listings Online: A spreadsheet of speculative magazines listing word counts, pay rates, etc.

The Short List: Places which publish flash and micro fiction.

Eric J. Guignard: Personal blog which includes calls for submission for dark fiction.

Alex Davis Events: Alex puts together workshops, festivals, and other events which feature excellent authors and scholars on speculative fiction. Specialties include folk horror, body horror, ghost stories, and the uncanny, but there are also courses on science fiction. Good stuff. I've gotten a lot out of these courses over the past few years.

The Fairytale Sessions: An excellent and inexpensive series of generative writing workshops hosted by Saraswathi Sukumar. These focus on fairytales, especially the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. I've written many stories based on writing prompts here.

Weird West Fiction: Do you write weird westerns? This is where to find resources for this cross-genre.

Authors Publish: Website and mailing list with lots of upcoming calls. Great for authors, not so hot for publishers, as being on that list results in a lot of authors sending things which don't match up with the submission calls. For example, if someone is publishing only military thrillers, they might be sent high fantasy instead. Always make sure you're sending a publisher the sort of stuff they are looking for.

Weekday Night Bites has a heap of videos about horror writing and the history of horror.

Not writing related, per se, but if you're sick of trying to read a story only to find it's behind a paywall, Paywall Reader will help you get around that.

Two new publications of mine are now up:

The Salmon Eater is the second prize winner for Necksnap X Menace's Emerging Voices in Speculative Horror Prize. This is my retelling of a traditional Inuit story collected by Inuk ethnographer Knud Rasmussen over a hundred years ago. The original is called "Ímarasugssuaq, Who Ate His Wives" and can be found here. It's kinda like an Arctic Bluebeard story.

Also, "The Tick Tick Tick of Today and Tomorrow's Smoky Promise" is available Unfurled: An Anthology of Trans and Genderqueer Voices. This is a flash fiction about possibly maybe finally dealing with procrastination.

I've barely had a chance to do much creative writing over the past couple of weeks. Instead, I've been working on contracts, grant applications, report-writing, and other less-fun stuff. The grant I'm applying for would support the creation of a new book of poetry, tentatively called "Blood, Stumps, and Thin-Shelled Eggs."

Last night, I did manage to add a fun new section to a chapter in my novella. I'm at the point in my story where I need to turn those screws and make the tension ramp up-up-UP! The end is sooo close. Originally, I was going to call it "The Development," but now I'm considering calling it "House Wife" instead.

To top it all off, I just purchased a ticket to WorldCon in Montreal next year. This will be my first one!

In late 2019, a friend came down with a mysterious sickness. Her breathing was badly affected, and she was hospitalized for a time. The doctors had no idea what was wrong with her. It almost killed her, and left her changed. By late 2020, we figured it was probably COVID.

Around that same time, I was going through menopause. The symptoms of menopause are kinda similar with some of the aftereffects of COVID: destroyed energy, severe brain fog, etc.

It left me wondering if I'd perhaps had asymptomatic COVID and then was left with long COVID. Kinda impossible to tell, especially since I was diagnosed with COVID in late 2023 and my bouts of exhaustion and brain fog worsened.

In any case, it has affected my judgment and my memory, which is a hell of a one-two punch. I've found myself making poor decisions that, if I'd been thinking clearly, definitely would not have done.

For one, I entered a writing contest. I placed, and the publisher said that in order to publish me, they needed me to send a scan of my govt. photo ID.

Normally, this would've sent alarm bells jangling. But apparently I did send it to them. I have no memory of doing this, but they showed me the proof. Why would I send something like that out, when it would leave me at higher risk of identity theft? I do not know.

More recently, I entered another contest with questionable requirements. Along with my submission, I sent a signed document saying they could publish my story without me receiving any payment.

Again, I have no recollection of doing this alarming thing, but when I won the contest, they reminded me I'd signed a document giving them permission in advance to publish my story without payment.

Why the heck did I do this?

I can only attribute it to a lapse in judgment due to fatigue and brain fog.

It's made me very angry with myself.

I'm not sure what the solution is.

But please, for the sake of your health, wear a mask. COVID is not gone. It continues to disable people and fuck with all their body systems, including their brains.

Thankfully, I think the latter contest is going to allow me to withdraw my story.

I want to share a couple of stories with you that I've read recently and which stick in my head.

The first is Boys and Girls by Alice Munro. She did an unforgiveable thing to her daughter, but her stories remain treasures to me. "Boys and Girls" feels like it could have been written about me. It encapsulates moments and feelings from my childhood. I've read this story many times. I just re-read it before making this post.

Tiddies by RS Benedict blows me away. At first, it feels silly. Childish and maybe prurient, because it's about boobies. But it is a wonderful, weird piece of science fiction and I'm glad I stumbled across it.

Hey, you!

I have newly-published stories:

Thank You For Calling the Thoughts and Prayers Hotline is up at FlashFlood.

"The Bird Husband" is in Volume 6 of If There's Anyone Left.

"Thumbing to Sugar Daddy Oberon" is part of Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Volume Five

My story "If You Go Into the North Today" is coming out soon in the anthology Why Aren't You Dead Yet?. ARCs are available at Book Sirens, and you can pre-order on Barnes & Noble.

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In other news, I recently found out that one of my stories was one of five finalists for an international climate-writing contest sponsored by a climate-catastrophe think tank. YAY!

But then I realized their promotional text and their illustrations were all created by generative AI. BOO! I told them that I do not want my work associated with stolen art, plagiarized writing, and climate-destroying technology.

My story was successfully withdrawn, but they did not offer any apologies for using climate-ruining theft machines. I'm left wondering why a climate-catastrophe think tank is using said technologies. Ah well!

In other sketchy contest news, there's a writing contest in Ontario which requires all entrants (including children) to send in photos of their government-issued photo ID. There are no privacy policies listed anywhere on the contest page. When I sent an email to the organizer saying this reeks of identity theft, they sent a long, blustering email about how they would never do such a thing, and how they are working in conjunction with TD Bank.

TD Bank was recently found guilty in a money-laundering case, by the way.

I contacted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and they said that anyone requiring photos of government ID needs a privacy policy in place with information on who gets to see that documentation, and there needs to be information on when those materials will be destroyed.

None of that exists on the contest page, alas.

Writers, if someone wants photos of your government ID in order to publish you or consider you for a contest, that's a big red flag.

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Here are some calls for submissions which have caught my eye. These will not charge you money and will pay you if your work is accepted:

Anathema Magazine: Publishes speculative fiction by queer BIPOC only. Open to submissions from June 20–July 20, 2026.

Queer Little Daydreams: Seeking poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from queer authors. Deadline August 1.

Clarkesworld: 1000-22000 words. 14¢ per word for science fiction/fantasy stories.

Grimalkin Press is looking for sweet-themed horror stories from nonbinary and women writers.

My poem Death of the Emperor's Nightingale is now live at Strange Horizons.

In other news, I've applied for residencies/fellowships in Iceland and Scotland.

A couple pieces of mine were published today:

Eclipse at Roses & Wildflowers Magazine.

"The Sick Fuck" at Monsterfck.

And I found out that I'm not shortlisted for just one fiction contest, but two!

"Rich-People Houses" is shortlisted for PRISM International's Jacob Zilber Short Fiction Prize.

And "Ethel's Bones," my stoner horror comedy story is shortlisted for The Temz Review's London Literary Prize.

Two new poems of mine went live today. You can read "Cyanotype of a Burning World" and "Weeds" at ALOCASIA.

The remarkable long essay The Cuddled Little Vice, an interrogation of Neil Gaiman and Sandman is up for a Hugo award. I binge-read it yesterday. I was a huge fan of Gaiman's works for years, and for a time in the 90s-00s, considered him a friend. I used to lament that we'd never met in person, but realize now that I dodged a bullet. This essay was cathartic for me, and I hope it wins the award.

Oops! I didn't update anything last month. That was not because I wasn't getting published. I was. It's because I was recovering from a followup to the colposcopy that left me very low in energy. I'm finally on the mend. I hope I never ever ever require another LEEP. Two more colposcopies to go over the next year and a half, though. BAH!

(For what it's worth, BlueSky censored my link to the LEEP procedure saying that it was sexual content. I swear to you that it is the opposite of sexual content. In fact, you're not supposed to have sex until the electrocuted, mangled cervix is healed, and in the meantime, what looks like cigarette butts are tumbling out of your cooch. SO NOT SEXY.)

I had a few publications in the interim:

I won Narratively's First Kiss contest with Running Around in Prepubescent Lust. These are the sordid details of my very first kiss, when I was six years old.

My story "The Grave of Robert Kirk" was published in Once Upon a Moonless Night: Tales of Betrayal, Revenge, and Redemption. If you're gonna get it, opt for the ebook because the print prices are absolutely bonkers.

My poem "I am Canadian" (which isn't the slightest bit patriotic) has been published in Canada is Our Poem.

Preorders are open for Monsterfck, which contains the absolute filthiest story I've ever written. I can't imagine how I could surpass this.

Despite ridiculous propaganda articles stating that most authors use AI, I guarantee that none of my writing comes from the slopmeister plagiarism machine. All my words are homegrown and freerange.

I've also applied for more writing grants and residencies. I had the sinking realization that even if I get a $10,000 grant, that still works out to about 1/3 of minimum wage for the year. In the meanwhile, professional rates for stories are $0.08/word, which means I might make a couple hundred bucks for a story that took me weeks to write. If it sells.

Gotta write faster. Gotta write better.

Gotta get universal basic income.

I have a plethora of publications this year. Here's what came out so far!

• Things No One Ever Told Me About the Change of Life. Breath & Shadow. February 17, 2026
  
• Sibyl Has a Heart of Gold. Rat Bag. February 14, 2026
  
• "We, Medusa" and "Prayer to Dorn Ridge." The Malahat Review: INHALE/EXHALE: Contemporary Indigenous Storytelling. February 9, 2026.
  
• I Am Pretty Sure Those are the Same Cops I Saw Dragging a Disabled Woman Across the Pavement By Her Dislocated Arm A Few Years Ago. Wordflower Poetry. February 8, 2026
  
• "He'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain When He Comes." Cosmic Horror Monthly. Issue 68. February 2, 2026.
  
• The Ghosts of Forests Past. Ecological Design Collective: Litter Journal. February 2, 2026
  
• What Could Be. Lucky Jefferson. January 25, 2026.
  
• "Sirens Don't Sing Underwater." Aothen Magazine. January 25, 2026
  

Yesterday was my last day at the McCormack Writing Center's winter workshop. I workshopped excerpts from my memoir-in-progress: Leaving Armageddon. Feedback was encouraging. I shared a hybrid collection of personal essays and poetry, and the takeaway is that readers want more. More. MOAR. I used my fellow workshoppees' feedback as writing prompts. Looks like I need to write more specifically about Armageddon, and what it meant to me as a kid. Funny that, especially considering the working title I gave the project.

I am also working on a collection of short stories called Every Tear From Their Eyes. This is related to my memoir as it is based on the premise of Jehovah's Witness teachings/prophecies being literally true. I've already written a cosmic horror flash called "The Good News," a short story called "Rich-People Houses," and another called "No Happy Endings." The latter was commissioned for an upcoming anthology in The Asylum of Terror series. Feedback from my weekly horror group has been positive, and just today, I received notification that my collection has been awarded a creation grant from the Ontario Arts Council through the recommendation of House of Anansi Press. I am grateful for their support. It's good to know that people want to read my stories.