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WSFA Award Winner: Me!
Oct. 2nd, 2022 08:02 pmI'm amazed and thrilled to announce that my story "Eight Mile and the City" from When Worlds Collide has won the WSFA small press award for short fiction. 
Check it!
This year, the committee got more than 260 stories for initial consideration. They whittled it down to ten finalists, including my story. The finalist list has some heavy-hitters in the SF writing community on it, and there were so many stories anyway, so I wasn't expecting to win. I had a "It would be great, but no need to get your hopes up" frame of mind. I was in the audience at the award ceremony in Washington DC, and when they announced my story had won, I was floored. I was so surprised, I couldn't do anything for a moment but stare at the announcer. Joshua Palmatier, one of the editors for the anthology, was sitting next to me, and I could see he was thrilled. In a fit of exuberance, I hugged him, then went up to the podium to get the award. I also gave a short speech. This is what I said:
Thank you, everyone! This is amazing!
This story means a lot to me. Not just because I wrote it, but because of what it means. The main character in "Eight Mile and the City" from When Worlds Collide is gay, but that's not what the story is about. The story is about a hardboiled detective trying to solve a kidnapping and uncovering his own past as well.
Not that long ago, this story would only have appeared in an anthology of gay fiction and "only"
gotten the attention of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. This story appears in a fantastic anthology
of wonderful stories that are geared toward all SF readers. It's not a specialty. It's not an odd outlier. Instead, it's one of the family.
Coincidentally, this weekend marks the opening of Bros, the first R-Rated gay rom-com put out
by a major studio. It's gotten smash reviews and is expected to be a box office success. At last, we get to have a happy ending. We've come a long way since the doom and gloom of Brokeback Mountain.
We still have further to go, of course, but every step forward gets us one step closer to full inclusion and acceptance. I'm thrilled that my story has become one of those steps.
I do want to thank the committee members for choosing "Eight Mile and the City." It means so very much! I also need to thank the members of the Untitled Writers Group of Ann Arbor, Michigan--Sarah, MaryBeth, Jonathan, Christian, Diana, Cindy, Ted, Christine P-K, and Christine D--for commentary that improved every line of this story. I want to thank S.C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier for editing When Worlds Collide and buying my story. And I want to thank my husband Darwin McClary for the inspiration I needed to write this piece.
I'm back home now and coasting on euphoria!
Check it!
This year, the committee got more than 260 stories for initial consideration. They whittled it down to ten finalists, including my story. The finalist list has some heavy-hitters in the SF writing community on it, and there were so many stories anyway, so I wasn't expecting to win. I had a "It would be great, but no need to get your hopes up" frame of mind. I was in the audience at the award ceremony in Washington DC, and when they announced my story had won, I was floored. I was so surprised, I couldn't do anything for a moment but stare at the announcer. Joshua Palmatier, one of the editors for the anthology, was sitting next to me, and I could see he was thrilled. In a fit of exuberance, I hugged him, then went up to the podium to get the award. I also gave a short speech. This is what I said:
Thank you, everyone! This is amazing!
This story means a lot to me. Not just because I wrote it, but because of what it means. The main character in "Eight Mile and the City" from When Worlds Collide is gay, but that's not what the story is about. The story is about a hardboiled detective trying to solve a kidnapping and uncovering his own past as well.
Not that long ago, this story would only have appeared in an anthology of gay fiction and "only"
gotten the attention of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. This story appears in a fantastic anthology
of wonderful stories that are geared toward all SF readers. It's not a specialty. It's not an odd outlier. Instead, it's one of the family.
Coincidentally, this weekend marks the opening of Bros, the first R-Rated gay rom-com put out
by a major studio. It's gotten smash reviews and is expected to be a box office success. At last, we get to have a happy ending. We've come a long way since the doom and gloom of Brokeback Mountain.
We still have further to go, of course, but every step forward gets us one step closer to full inclusion and acceptance. I'm thrilled that my story has become one of those steps.
I do want to thank the committee members for choosing "Eight Mile and the City." It means so very much! I also need to thank the members of the Untitled Writers Group of Ann Arbor, Michigan--Sarah, MaryBeth, Jonathan, Christian, Diana, Cindy, Ted, Christine P-K, and Christine D--for commentary that improved every line of this story. I want to thank S.C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier for editing When Worlds Collide and buying my story. And I want to thank my husband Darwin McClary for the inspiration I needed to write this piece.
I'm back home now and coasting on euphoria!
