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.

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.

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.

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.

Thank goodness for queer publishers. They buy the stories that I think are too strange for anyone to want to print.

So far this month, I have one new publication. My flash fiction "Before the Flood" has been published by The Storms in issue 5. You can also listen to me read it on their podcast: Eat the Storms. Everyone's work is well worth listening to. My narration begins at the 54-minute mark.

I have taken a temp position at an arts board. Rather than writing/submitting grant applications as usual, this time, I'll be adjudicating grant applications. I figure it's good experience, and will educational AF. I just hate that not everyone will get the money they need and deserve. I used to be on a scholarship committee, and it was the same hard thing.

Pre-orders are now up for an anthology I'm in: Up:Rising - A Collection of Rebellious Imaginings From Authors With Lived Experience of Mental Health & Addictions. My poems "Half Blood Line" and "To Live a Life More Full" are featured within.

In the meantime, I continue to work on my various writing projects. It never ends until I do.

If you want to hear me read some of my new, unpublished work, you'll have an opportunity this Friday. I'm one of the readers for Flights of Foundry. This is a 100% free online speculative fiction convention with writers and readers from all over the world. My reading is on Friday at 1:00 EST.

I'm also on a panel about Indigenous Horror on Sunday at 5:00 with Shane Hawk and Johnnie Jae.

There are all sorts of readings, panels, fan chats, author chats, role playing games, and more all weekend. Sign up for free at Flights of Foundry.

The next anthology I'm in drops in two days, I think. I just got my copy the other day. Moonlit Getaway is publishing their first anthology: Harvest Moon. My flash fiction "Sirens Don't Sing Underwater," about what's going on with the sirens from The Odyssey, is featured within.

Pre-orders are now open for the ebook version Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three. My Aurora-finalist poem "Angakkuq" (first published in On Spec is included. I'm pretty chuffed that I've finally snuck my way into this killer anthology series. I'm bookmates on here with some big names. The trade paperback pre-orders haven't begun yet. You can take a look at the table of contents here.

I recently placed a flash fiction with another anthology series. I won't say the name yet until I get all the details, but my story is "The Bird Husband." It's been shortlisted and longlisted for a few contests, but never made it to print. I'm glad it's finally getting its moment. What makes it particularly interesting to me is that not two minutes before getting an acceptance for it, it had received yet another rejection.

Taste is subjective.

My story The Snow Hath No Queen was rejected from many places but went on to win two awards, and my poem "Angakkuq" was rejected by several before it became an Aurora finalist. Go figure.

I recently completed a new short story called "The Old Woman Who Became a Bear." It is a retelling of Papik, Who Killed His Wife's Brother collected by Knud Rasmussen about a hundred years ago. I'm currently shopping that around.

Also working on another short story tentatively called "We All Fall Down." This one is a tale of puberty horror, and is pretty funny so far. It may end up a novelette, that most difficult of story lengths to home.

In other news, a week ago, I went to DreadCon. It was my first horror convention, and, over all, I had a good time. I ended up buying a whole wack of books to add to my stupendously-large To Be Read pile. I spoke with a bunch of authors, and also with a few editors. One of those editors has just requested the full manuscript for my novella The Temperance Ridge Runaways. I sure hope she likes it, because I would love to have my book debut with her.

Here are the short stories I've been reading:

Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson
The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere by John Chu

I did not win the Aurora award, but I'm totally fine with that. Y.M. Pang's poem Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka won, and deservedly so. Go give it a read. It's brilliant and fun.

My shortlisted poem "Angakkuq" might not have won, but it will be published in a best-of anthology. I can't say which one yet, but will share when that information is available!

I found out my personal essay "The Friday Plane," about drugs and my near miss with Pablo Escobar's cartel in the wilds of New Brunswick, has been longlisted for the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. Neat!

ALOCASIA has nominated my personal essay The Ghosts of Forests Past for the Best of the Net awards. I didn't make it to the final rounds, but it was nice to be nominated.

My story Sibyl Has a Heart of Gold has been nominated by The Temz Review for the Journey Prize for dark fiction.


Time to add some other fun stuff to this blog of mine, like what I'm reading and finding interesting.

I'm currently taking a course at Writing the Other with Henry Lien, author of Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird. It's a really interesting book on Eastern storytelling. I'm enjoying the readings for the course.

I just finished reading an essay for it called Shakespeare in the Bush wherein the author learns the true meaning of Hamlet from the Tiv of West Africa.

Unrelated to the course, but super-related to writing, here's the most useful craft essay I've ever read. It deals with the shape of story openings: The Wrong Shape for Your Opening by Vera Kurian.

The reading at the Waterloo Bookfest was not my best. It was a cool and blustery day, and I read The Qalupalik from a printout on a single piece of paper. Normally, this would not have been a problem, but I was getting a lot of feedback from the microphone and had to grab the mic in one hand and hold the flapping piece of paper in the other while I moved further away from the stage monitor to get clear, unscreechy sound. Because I couldn't hold the paper in both hands, I got lost a few times during my reading. To top it off, there was a group of 12-year-old boys behind me being little shits. I was a little 12-year-old shit, once, too. It's a rite of passage, I think. They were roughhousing and once I finished my reading, one of them came up to the mic and made a big show of thanking everyone for clapping for him. All the while, he kept shooting looks at his friends to make sure they knew how cool he was. Oh, cringey tweens. You're only cool to one another. Hahah!

I have another reading coming up. I'm a featured performer at the Huron Multicultural Festival in Goderich, Ontario on June 28. I'll be taking the stage at 12:15 and this time, I will be prepared for cringey 12-year-olds, screechy feedback, and noisome gusts of wind. Prepare yourself for some spooky tales!

In other news, I've received dozens and dozens of rejections. For all the publications I get, folks are mostly unaware of how many things do NOT get published. I haven't done a specific count for a year, but I did count in May. I sent out 61 submissions. I had I had 23 rejections. I had three acceptances. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of years to hear back from any particular magazine/anthology. Sometimes they never respond at all. And sometimes, things will be accepted, and then they never get around to sending a contract or responding to any further communications. Publishing can be a very frustrating endeavour.

All that being said, I've had three rejections since last night, and a couple of publications so far this month.

Flash Flood published my tiny tale of terror Overdrawn.

Terrain.org has published my short story If You Listen, a cautionary tale from the POV of Sedna, mother of the sea.

As I mentioned before, my poem "Angakkuq," as published by On Spec Magazine, is a finalist for the Aurora Awards. Voting is now open to members of the CSFFA (Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. You do not need to be an author to be a member. Membership is only ten bucks, and for that low price, you get a voters' package which includes all of the finalists for the year. This includes full-length novels, short stories, poetry, illustrations, and more. You don't have to vote for me (although I won't complain if you do), but I'd love to have you read my poem as well as check out the amazing work by Canadian writers and illustrators. The money supports speculative fiction in Canada.

Tenebrous Press has shared a mini interview with me. My story "The Snow Hath No Queen" is a winner of their Brave New Weird award, and will be published later this month in their anthology. It looks fantastic! You can order it here.

Now that it's up on their page, I can officially announce it now. My poem "Angakkuq" is a finalist for the Aurora Awards. This is my first time as a finalist there. I've been sitting on this knowledge for over a week. I'm so excited I could barf.

In other news, my interview with Moonlit Getaway went live today, too.

I'm still in Banff, still writing daily. I don't know that I'll finish the first draft of my novella while I'm here, but it is possible. I'm making headway.

I don't make very much as a writer. I'm incredibly lucky that I don't have to rely on these paltry earnings to stay alive. Much of my payment comes to me through PayPal. PayPal is not a bank. Money sitting in there can vanish for arbitrary reasons. And since I don't have my PayPal account attached to a bank account, that means I have to use it right away.

I've been sending that money off to folks in dire situations. My writing literally helps feed starving people. It's wholly unfair that the greatest harms are caused by the richest people in the world. It's wholly unfair that the poorest of us are left taking care of one another.

My poem "The Selkie" just sold. It will be published in Gwyllion Magazine this spring. The tiny bit of money made from it may have helped keep a starving family in Gaza alive for another day.

In less distressing news, my reading on Friday went over very well. Fifty people showed up and heard my story "The Last Trench." It went over very well. The next day, its publisher, Horns and Rattle Press, told me that they've nominated it as one of the best speculative eco-fiction stories of the year.

A recording of my reading will be going up on the Strong Women Strange World's YouTube channel in a week or so.

I have another reading coming up. I've graduated from GrubStreet's Novel Immersive for LGBTQ+ Writers, and we will be reading from our works on Tuesday, March 18 at 6:00 pm Eastern time. Won't you come check us out? I'm reading a chapter from The Everwhen: a scene featuring Enki, a mergoat fertility god who creates rivers via ejaculation. It's a funny scene, and topical. You can register here.