Shock and (Award) Awe – Sunburst Longlist Nomination

Holy shit. My Titan and Serpent story “Until There is Only Hunger” (published in Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling, edited by Monica Valentinelli & Jaym Gates) got longlisted for the 2017 Sunburst Award. I, uh, was not expecting that? I mean obviously, but since the Sunburst Awards don’t notify nominees ahead of time it was in all respects a surprise.

I may be excessively fond of that story, but it’s another thing entirely to have an award jury say: “Why yes, this thing deserves to be longlisted for an award.”

So. Yeah.

Quite an impressive longlist across the three categories, and I’m there with friends and colleagues, and looking at a number of excellent stories and novels on that ballot, and dear god the CBC posted about the longlist. O_o

Madeline Ashby and Madeleine Thien are rightly headlining that article, but god damn it my work showed up in an article/press release appearing on the CBC. I’m just going to enjoy this moment because I’d already read all but two of the short stories longlisted and I don’t expect to win my category.

But I’m now a Sunburst nominee! Been longlisted for fiction in a contest before, but never for an award (been award-nominated elsewhere as an editor, but it doesn’t have the same feel), so that’s thoroughly awesome! :D

If anyone needs me I’ll just be over here squeeing.