This past weekend I had the privilege of attending BOSKONE 58. The convention was held online due to the pandemic, and I’m pleased to say it was well-organized and executed the entire weekend. The panels I attended were all fantastic, and I’m looking forward to spending the next few days perusing the recordings of the sessions I was unable to attend. I’m absolutely planning on attending BOSKONE 59 next year in person, these folks know how to put on a great event.
The highlight for me was being named the winner of NESFA’s annual short story contest. I was informed I was a finalist the week before, and all I knew coming in was that the four finalists would be getting some time to do a live reading of part of our stories. At the risk of sounding cliché, I was truly happy just being mentioned. Since “The Last Prophet” had already found its forever home at Andromeda Spaceways, just knowing that readers the world over enjoy the piece was all the validation I needed.
So when they announced me as the contest winner at the awards ceremony on Saturday night, I was genuinely overwhelmed with humility and gratitude. I’m probably underselling it when I say that this sort of recognition is a big deal early in the career of an emerging writer. The judges were renowned authors Kim Stanley Robinson and Joe Abercrombie, and they certainly had their work cut out for them. I was blown away by how good the other finalists’ excerpts were as they read them. “What We Take From Each Other” by Sam Ruhmkorff, “Letter to Death” by K. S. Shere, and “You Told Me To” by John Dulak are bound to find their forever homes soon if they haven’t already, and you can be sure that I’ll be first in line to pick up a copy when they do.
In the meantime, it’s back to the writing room for me. With a fresh batch of submissions out in the world, I’m hoping I’ll have more good news to share soon.