Sarah Pinsker's Blog

2024 Happened: A Year in Review

First off, I am terrible at year in review stuff, as you can see by the fact that it is now a week into the new year and I’m just getting this done. I had a good year personally, amid the ::waves at world:: and I sometimes struggle with that, but I think it can be a victory in itself to allow yourself happiness. In that spirit, I look back on this year:

 

2024 Publications:

“Signs of Life,” a novelette in Uncanny about two estranged sisters and loneliness and purpose and art. Paula Guran, writing in Locus, called it “A charming, positive novelette about how creativity grows from need.”

 

Haunt Sweet Home, a standalone novella published by Tordotcom, which a Booklist starred review called "Fun, eerie, [and] unexpectedly beautiful ...” and of which Library Journal said, "Pinsker’s evocative prose turns an amusing reality-show backdrop into a haunting story of hiding from (and discovering) oneself." Haunt Sweet Home was picked at the end of the year as one of NPR’s “Books We Love” for 2024. Also, the audio version is a delight.

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What those pieces have in common is that they were both inspired by exhibits at the American Visionary Art Museum, so come for the weird art, stay for the weird story, or vice versa.

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Things I got to do because of Haunt Sweet Home:

Haunt Sweet Home had a book tour! I got to be on lots of podcasts and go to lots of book festivals and bookstores and even a conference for booksellers. I got to interview TJ Klune on stage in Nashville. I got to sign my book sitting at a table next to Joan Baez! I got her to sign a book for me. I got to hang out with lots of writers I love, and meet a whole bunch of cool writers I hadn’t met before. I got to go to a party at a house full of Lewis Carroll ephemera, including his own book collection, his typewriter, the Dali-illustrated Alice, and more. I got to buy a microscopic copy of Watership Down from a vending machine. I got to see old friends and new friends and students at all of my stops, which made it an excellent tour by any metric. Oh, and the Baltimore book launch at Greedy Reads was good fun, made better again by all the people I love who I got to see for a couple of hours, as well as the total strangers who took a chance on the event.

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Other writing related stuff of the sort you can celebrate but not plan for:

“One Man’s Treasure” was a Hugo finalist and Locus award finalist, and “There’s a Door to the Land of the Dead in the Land of the Dead” and my collection Lost Places (all 2023 works) were also  Locus award finalists.

 

I sold a movie option on “Two Truths and a Lie.” I’ll admit I’m very curious to see the choices they make if anything happens with it.

 

Someone gave me beautiful calligraphy quotes from my own books. The Bookmarks festival commissioned cool book art for each author. 

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I was a guest at writing events at Eastern Tennessee State University and Stevenson University.

 

My book got its own ice cream! The Charmery made a Haunt Sweet Home flavor, with smoky apple brandy and toffee bits. A portion of the proceeds went to Day's End Farm Horse Rescue, and it was delicious.

 

Other writing related stuff of the sort you can plan for:

I got to attend the Sycamore Hill workshop with a bunch of wonderful writers who push me to be better—and also got sneak previews of all their terrific new works. I got to sit on a porch in the mountains of North Carolina and play music and chat. And while that beautiful location was cut off from the world by the hurricane, the buildings weren’t destroyed, and they are hard at work repairing the roads and water lines so they can invite guests back in 2025.

 

I went to Worldcon in Glasgow, my first time in Scotland. I love the European Worldcons because I get to meet new-to-me writers and fans from all over (six of seven continents, no Antarctic aliens), as well as writers whose work I have long admired but who don’t attend American cons. I had a reading and a signing and a kaffeeklatsch and a standing-room-only panel on fungi in fiction and a fun one on mysteries in space, and probably a couple more that I’m blanking on right now. I got to visit the Kelpie statues with a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years. After the convention, a bunch of friends and I took a bus tour of the Highlands, where we experienced every season in a day, ate fish and chips and single-malt whiskey ice cream, and met a very good spaniel who wanted to play fetch in the rain. 

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Writing: Writing OF 2024, not published in 2024? Well, I worked on a lot of things that are not done yet. I finished and sold exactly one story, which isn’t announced yet. A year of nudging things forward means that this year should be a year of finishing, I hope.

 

Teaching

I taught the spring and fall semesters at Goucher, with two more classes full of delightfully creative writers. For the second year in a row one of my students was a finalist for the Dell Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy. 

In July, I got to teach week four of the Clarion West workshop. Clarion West, for those who don’t know, is a six week workshop for genre writers. It’s been going for decades, and I had always wanted to attend as a student but never had an opportunity to apply, so I was delighted at the opportunity to teach. And it lived up to all of my expectations! The students were talented and hard working (they write a story every week while also critiquing seventeen other manuscripts!) and so generous with each other, both in workshop and outside of it. At the end of the week they gave me a copy of my collection that they had illustrated, and I made them sign my emotional support unicorn, and we went to a great party and then hung out into the wee hours, and then I had to leave and they had to keep going for two more weeks.. Some of the stories we worked on together are already seeing publication! (see below)

And the workshop took place in Seattle, which meant there was a lovely view of the mountain from the back deck of the dorm building, and also meant that I got a couple of days afterward to visit with old friends and whale watch and go to an art talk on Bainbridge and stuff. 

Movement metrics:

I walked a little over 600 miles. Pretty good, could be better; so sayeth I, so sayeth the dogs. Logged a few miles on my friend’s cute green Haflinger pony as well, which makes my heart happy. 2023 was the year that my shoulder froze, and it took about eight months of PT to get close to normal, well into 2024. So that’s a victory for this past year too, that I managed to unfreeze my shoulder without surgery, and that I can ride horses again, and scratch my own back. I’d love to start running again, since that’s a thing that I dropped; I had no idea how many things involved my shoulder until I couldn’t use it. 

 

Movies:

I must have seen some, but this was a year of so much travel that I didn’t make it to the movies or the theater much. I think my favorite 2024 movie was Thelma. Also caught up on American Fiction and All of Us Strangers and some other 2023 movies on planes. Godzilla Minus One was great too! The Golden Globes told me what I already knew, that I have basically missed everything this year, except Thelma, which was adorable. 

 

TV: 

I dug the new season of For All Mankind. Man on the Inside was good stuff: I like the heart that Schur puts into his shows, and it was fun seeing the Good Place cast popping in here and there. Death and Other Details was a decent mystery, sort of a White Lotus/Knives Out kind of affair. Kaos was ambitious, chaotic fun, and I’m sad it won’t get another season. Black Doves was a decent spy thriller centering women and gay characters, and I adore Sarah Lancashire and Ben Wishaw. The new Doctor Who episodes this year were the best in a while. I loved Jodie Whitaker and her companions, but I thought the writing for her was subpar, so it’s nice to see a combination of fun doctor and decent stories. 

 

Music:

I mostly went to and listened to local stuff this year. I didn't play any shows at all, but I had a good time playing music with people on a few occasions. Favorite local albums: Manners Manners’  I Held Their Eyes, I Kissed Them All.  June Star’s Latency, J. Robbins’ Basilisk. Fell for Allison Russell with The Returner. Saw a good Jason Isbell show. Neil Young brought Crazy Horse out of the garage and dusted them off and propped them up and made glorious noise for what I’m guessing might be the last time, and I got to see them before their tour was permanently interrupted. SONiA and disappear fear in February and December, always a highlight. And Springsteen’s show at Camden Yards, which was probably the best I’ve ever seen the E Street Band, and I’ve seen some good shows. Something about the ballpark and the music reaching out into the perfect September evening. 

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Games: 

I played zero video games OF 2024. Kellan Szpara made me finally finish Breath of the Wild and start Tears of the Kingdom, and I think that might have been the only thing I played in 2024. I didn’t have a lot of time to play, which means that every time I attempt to do so I wind up flailing wildly and forgetting where everything is and where I’m going and then I go read a book instead, which is too bad, since I do have fun wandering around and discovering things. I’m just not as good at following the plot.

But – we did two book nook kits, which I thought were a fun way to spend time, and my obsession with escape games continues apace. And I continued some other creative projects, including painting a tiny horse for Nicola Griffith.

The Year in Flowers:

My garden did okay this year. An overabundance of tiny tomatoes, then a late season rally by the lemon boys. We made it to Sherwood Gardens in time to see the incredible tulips (on eclipse day!) and to Fort McHenry in time to see the cherry blossoms. My lilac bloomed happily in the spring, but I'm a little worried for it in 2025 given that December was so warm it actually bloomed (!) and also I think the lanternflies have caused it some problems. I have not killed any houseplants this year. *okay maybe one

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The year in ice cream:

I have to say that getting my own flavor was the absolute highlight, but I'll also shout out the smoked vanilla ice cream at Timber in Johnson City and the Edradour single malt whiskey ice cream.

 Books:

I’m on slightly firmer ground here! I read a decent number of books. I’m happy to be back in a place where the number doesn’t matter anymore since I quit adding to Goo Dreads. I still keep track, but just for myself. Some of my favorites that came out in 2024 included Kay Chronister’s The Bog Wife, Micaiah Johnson’s Those Beyond the Wall, Kelly Link’s The Book of Love, Kailane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, Victor Manibo’s Escape Velocity, and In Universes by Emet North, Tara Campbell’s City of Dancing Gargoyles.

On the novella front, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar was the last thing I read in 2024 and it absolutely blew me away. Izzy Wasserstein’s These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart impressed me too. My friends Hildur Knutsdottir and Sunny Moraine wrote books that were far too scary for me but were just scary enough for other people, and I had fun chatting with both of them at a bookstore in Richmond. Nathan Ballingrud's Crypt of the Moon Spider also gave me nightmares.

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy and Orbital by Samantha Harvey both served as beautiful change-of-pace in a frenetic year. 

Of other years: Victor LaValle’s Lone Women and John Langan’s The Fisherman are both going onto my list of all time favorites/why did I wait so long to get to this. They are both absolutely brilliant and terrifying in beautiful ways. I reread Wylding Hall, and then my library got the audiobook in, so I listened to it again too. Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott was fascinating and exhausting. 

 I’m making my slow way toward the complete Daphne du Maurier, and My Cousin Rachel was an excellent read. I finished it on tour just in time to talk about it with a podcaster who turned out to be a huge du Maurier fan as well. 

 

Short fiction:

Forgive me, but I’m casting about to remember what I read in the short fiction realm, and coming up very short. I feel bad about it until I remember that I read and critiqued ninety stories for my undergrads, and eighteen stories for my Clarion West students, and another dozen plus for my Syc Hill colleagues, plus a few for friends, plus books for blurbs, plus at least six books for in-conversation events. So it’s not that I wasn’t reading short fiction, it’s just that everything I was reading was unpublished. 

 

So I’ll just brag on my students and THEIR 2024:

Conrad Loyer’s short story “The Carcosa Pattern,” from my week of Clarion West, was published in Issue 32 of FIYAH this fall, with abundant space creepiness.

Chris Campbell’s novelette “In the Palace of Science,” appeared in Asimov’s.  Chris also edited the anthology New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention. Chris was in my CW class.

Max Franciscovich’s “After We Kill Our Father And Before We Reach the Mainland,” appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. (Also! Max’s story from my CW week, “Dead Dog Mans the Lighthouse,” just came out in Strange Horizons yesterday! You will love The Dog, and you don’t have to worry about him because he’s already dead and working on being good.)

Somto Ihezue’s Desperate Ark Wives appeared in Haven Speculative. Somto was in my CW class.

Beston Barnett’s “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain,” appeared in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of Asimov’s, which may seem like a 2025 thing, but some awards count Jan/Feb issue appearances as 2024, so I thought I’d mention it here.  Beston was one of my students at Rambo Academy’s Wayward Wormhole workshop in Spain last year.

Gio Clairval, also from the Wayward Wormhole, had “Found in Translation” in Nature Futures in October.

M.T. Khan’s novel Amir and the Jinn Princess came out in July. During Clarion West!

Dylan Halsted’s “Armageddon.txt” was a Dell Award finalist. Dylan is one of my Goucher students (and one of my TAs this fall.)

And not published-in-2024 but 2024 newsworthy: Auden Patrick, also from the Spain workshop, sold a Hamlet reimagining called THOUGHTS BE BLOODY to DAW! It’ll come out in 2026.

I think that’s everyone, but apologies if I’m wrong.

So that’s the year in me, with some bonus other people. 

Good luck with 2025 to all, and love from snowy Baltimore – Sarah

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Sarah

 

"Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" won the Nebula!

On Saturday night, my story “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” won the Nebula Award for best short story. This was my fourth Nebula win —and my third consecutive, in three different categories!— but my first for short story. The ceremony and the conference were online, also for the third year in a row. The Nebula is given by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association— my fellow writers, and the ballot is always full of wonderful work. 

As someone who has now accepted three Nebulas and a Hugo (the Hugos were in person, but I had an asymptomatic positive Covid test that week and stayed home) from this chair in my library, I can say there’s something weird about accepting an award live online. I’m a performer; I know how to channel energy. And yet, when they say my name, and the adrenaline hits while I’m trying to find the buttons to hit “accept promotion to speaker” and also remember to turn on my camera and mic, and also try to keep the dogs from barking as they feed off my excitement, there’s nowhere for the excitement to go. I can’t see other faces, so my excitement bounces off the computer and hits me square, telling me I should speed up instead of take a breath. 

This time there were three people in the next room, and the delay was only a few seconds, so they heard me whoop and came running. They stopped in the doorway, tried to shush the dogs, and tried not to make any noise while I gave my hurried and overexcited speech. When I finished, they whooped before the feed had cut off, and I whipped my head around, and apparently the result on the award’s YouTube feed sounded like I had been murdered by a cat. I don’t have a cat. 

And also, of course, the truth is, I was excited. It’s an honor, and not something I will ever get used to. I have the very first Nebula anthology on my shelf, where Damon Knight explains the founding of SFWA and the choice of the award, based on a sketch by Kate Wilhelm. “Each consists of a spiral nebula made of metallic glitter, and a specimen of rock crystal, both embedded in a block of clear Lucite.”

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There are now three of those beautiful things on my shelf, each one different, and a fourth on its way. They are external validation in a world where that is sometimes a hard thing to get. We write these things, and edit them, and send them out into the world hoping that someone will read them, but we don't always get to know when that's the case. I know how lucky I am. 

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And the thing is, I grew up reading those Nebula anthologies, and other SF anthologies and collections, and even though I am now ten years into this career, there is still a pinch-me-I’m-dreaming quality to this for me. To be on a list forever linked with stories like “Love is the Plan the Plan is Death” and “The Day Before the Revolution,” as someone who grew up reading those stories, is an impossible honor. 

A couple of people have asked me for the text and the list I gave in my speech, so here it is, in its more coherent and less breathless form, without me cutting parts as I went. It starts with thank yous to SFWA members, Zu, my family, my Sparklepony critique group, my agent Kim-Mei Kirtland, Uncanny Magazine, and the other finalists, Jose Pablo Iriarte, Alix Harrow, Suzan Palumbo, John Wiswell, Sam Miller, for their excellent stories – I always assume I will not win, because I know the quality of the rest of the ballot. 

Winning the Nebula for short story is really special to me because, at heart, I love short stories. Since I’m sitting here in my library accepting this award, I can demonstrate that. Those shelves over there? First of all, they’re doubled up with books behind the books. Those are the anthologies. You can see all of the Dozois Years’ Bests, and Strahan, and Horton, and John Joseph Adams, and Datlow and Windling, and Guran. You can see anthologies edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell and Judith Merrill and those VanderMeer Big Books of. Lisa Yazsek, Cramer & Hartwell. Best of F & SFs,  Twelve Tomorrows, Women of Wonder. Not pictured? Countless copies of F & SF and Asimov’s and other magazines. 

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These books behind me? A lot of these are collections too, containing stories both famous and near-forgotten. That shelf there? That’s all Le Guin. Here’s Delany’s Driftglass and Distant Stars. And Nino Cipri and Jeff Ford and Ted Chiang and Molly Gloss and Sheree Renee Thomas and Kij Johnson and Alaya Dawn Johnson and Tenea D. Johnson and Shirley Jackson and Isabel Yap and NK Jemisin and Michael Bishop and Connie Willis and Andy Duncan and Ken Liu and Richard Butner and Caroline Yoachim and Tina Connolly and Charlie Jane Anders and Karen Joy Fowler and Kelly Link and Christopher Rowe and Kit Reed and Cordwainer Smith and Theodore Sturgeon and Tiptree and Elwin Cotman and AC Wise and Kiini Ibura Salaam and Miriam Allen De Ford and John Crowley and Jonathan Carroll and Malka Older and Sam Miller and Jane Yolen and Kay Chronister and if I’m reading these off a list, I made that list off the top of my head even though I could point to them, because I know exactly where they are on the shelf, because these are the things I pull out when I want to challenge myself again to push myself to my limits: the quick hit of a brilliant short story will never cease to inspire me. 

And you? I look forward to reading your work too. 

 I love short stories. Thank you for this honor.

My 2021 in Fiction And Music

My 2021 in Fiction and Music 

So I think 2021 happened? March 2020 was a year long, and 2021 felt like a month, but it must have been longer, because somewhere in that month time expanded to allow a book, a couple of stories, and an album to happen. And my third Nebula, for my 2020 story "Two Truths And A Lie," which also brought my first Stoker nomination, as well as Hugo and Locus nominations. Also a puppy. If you want to know what happened to my productivity, all my focus went into keeping a tiny rescue puppy alive. He's not so tiny now. The same weight as Sprocket and six inches taller, and we have no idea what he's going to be, but he's a good guy, so I figure it was time well spent. 

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2021 STORIES (This doubles as an eligibility post):  

I only had two short stories out this year, but I'm super proud of both of them. The first was "Where Oaken Hearts do Gather," which appeared in Uncanny Magazine's March/April issue. It's a dark fantasy story told in comments on a lyrics website. The characters are trying to figure out the meaning behind a ballad that may or may not have a basis in truth. It was tremendous fun to write this one because I had to write the song in order to write the story. There's even a recording hidden in the story. As you might know, I love writing fiction about music, and this is one of those stories that just felt great to write from the first word to the last.  

[image error]art by Ashley Mackenzie for A Better Way of Saying

My other original story this year was "A Better Way of Saying," which came out  November 10 at Tor.com. This one deserves a blog post of its own, but the short explanation is that it's historical fantasy set in the early days of film, recounting a particular movie magic. It features Lower East Side movie shouters (a real thing!) and a real life incident of the kind that begs to be fictionalized. If I've been writing too much creepy stuff for you, this might be more your jam.  

NOVEL:  

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My second novel, We Are Satellites, was published in May, after ten years in my brain. It came out in beautiful US and UK editions. The tagline "one family and the technology that divides them" was a pretty good summation. It brought my first New York Times review (“Taut and elegant, carefully introspected and thoughtfully explored.”) And some nice reviews elsewhere as well!  
  
“Pinsker’s newest is a carefully crafted sci-fi web stretched over an intensely human core.” 
—Booklist (starred review) 

“A graceful exploration of what one seemingly small change means for one family…Capturing the universal in the down-to-earth and specific is one of Pinsker’s gifts, and here it’s on remarkable display.” 
—Tor.com 

The year ended with a great review in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction by Charles de Lint saying "Pinsker has a rather small body of work so far, but for this reader she's one of the brightest lights to emerge from the field in recent years. She's thoughtful, inclusive, not afraid to step up and shine a light into the darkness, but also not afraid to allow emoticons to play as large a part in her stories as the logic that underpins them. Like everything else she has written to date, We Are Satellites is highly recommended." 

MUSIC

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My last new thing for the year was my fourth album, more than a decade in the making. You can read more about it here.  I called it Something to Hold for a few reasons. It's a lyric from my song "Tomorrow People," a dustbowl song inspired by Timothy Egan's book The Worst Hard Time. The term comes from the people who would say "tomorrow things will be better" and stayed put rather than leaving.  

Daniel, when we put down roots here I swear they dug in deep 
these days it’s just the stubborn ones like us 
still scrambling for something to hold 

We came drawn by a blanket of grass  

tucked in at the corners of the sky 

You'd think that such a precious thing 

would have put up more of a fight 

The album in general has a lot of songs about people trying to figure things out: where they are, what they're supposed to be doing, how long to stay in a situation, what's worth holding on to and what's worth fighting for. The cover alludes to the song "I Am Out Here," but also to that moment of letting go and trusting you'll be caught again and held. I figured it was a good name for something that I had talked about for so long that I wasn't sure if I'd ever see it in its concrete form. And then I was also thinking about the changes in music in recent years, and thought there was something fun and ironic in naming an album "Something to Hold" when my presumption is that most people will buy it in an ephemeral format online. That said, there are also CDs for those who, like me, still have the choice of CD or terrestrial radio in their car.  It's available everywhere, but bandcamp is best for me, if you want to check it out.

So anyway, yeah, 2021. Another hard year for artists, so if you're of a mind to, consider doing something to support your local artistic ecosystem if you can. Buy an album on Bandcamp, talk up a local band, put a few bucks in an artist's tip jar, buy books from your local bookstore, request your favorite authors in your local library, write a review, buy a calendar or a t-shirt from an artist you love. I still believe we're all in this together. 

Much love--Sarah

New album! Surprise!

I have a non-book-related surprise:

MY MYTHICAL FOURTH ALBUM! 

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I have wanted this to exist in the wild for so long, and there were so many things that stood in the way. I think we recorded the first track for this in 2009, and the rest over several years after that. There were several times when I thought I was almost there, and something got in the way.  I finally said okay, if I want this out there, I just have to do it. 

It's called Something to Hold. My longtime collaborate/producer/friend John M. Seay and I made it with a bunch of amazing musicians, including SONiA disappear fear Laura Cerulli Dave Hadley, Claudia SanSoucie and Kate Maguire of Beggar's Ride, Seth Kibel Michael Redding, Tony Bonta Rebecca Pickard, Rosie Shipley, Dave Abe, Julie Mays, and my wonderful late friend and drummer Tony Calato. They sang and played fiddle and pedal steel and clarinet and guitar and mandolin and banjo and drums, in various combinations. 

Jennifer Smith of Naked Blue did the design work. 

It has a bunch of songs you've possibly heard me play solo or with the Stalking Horses in another form, like Waterwings, Josephine, Powder River, and the Dylan cover "Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)" and a few you probably haven't heard  before.  

You might have heard me say that fiction and songwriting both stem from the same storytelling place in my heart. "Fanny's Letter" stems from a letter between my great-great-aunt in Munich just before the Holocaust and my great-aunt in the US, and I view it as a collaboration across time. "Tomorrow People" was inspired by Timothy Egan's dustbowl history The Worst Hard Time, which also inspired Ken Burns' dustbowl documentary. "I Am Out Here" is the story of a circus sideshow's "living doll,"  in love with an aerialist. "Josephine" is the strange dream or reality of a soldier in the Great War. "Powder River" is about a farmer who takes matters into his own hands after the government claims oil rights on his land. There are love songs here, and unrequited love songs, and stories about figuring yourself out and figuring other people out and whatever else you like songs about. 

It should be available on all the major platforms, though Bandcamp is my preference. 

Now here comes the fine print: I had declared today as my I-swear-it's-coming-out-no-matter-what, but the CDs aren't back yet, and may be a couple more weeks, and I was sick of postponing. I'm not putting the link up yet, because I don't want to be the person who can't deliver merchandise. 

So if you're a digital download person, here it is, complete and ready. If you want a CD, they'll be on bandcamp in a few weeks. I had wanted to surprise John with a case of them at his door today, but hopefully he'll be okay with this surprise and the promise of a case in a couple of weeks. I'll be sending copies to everyone on it too, of course. 

I love this album, and I hope you do too.

--Sarah

 

New novel! New news!

I have so much to tell you, and I'm full of exclamation points and news, both book and music related! 

And now I'm back to tell you that I have a new novel coming out next week. It's called We Are Satellites and it's a story about one family and the near-future tech fad that divides them. The reviews so far have been pretty great, but I'm excited to get it in the hands of readers after it's been in my head for so long. It's being published by Penguin Random House's Berkley imprint in the US and Canada, and by Head of Zeus in the UK and a bunch of other countries. 

I've got two free online launch events to celebrate it. 
Tuesday, May 11 at 7 PM Eastern hosted online by the Ivy Bookshop, I'll be chatting with the amazing novelist and science journalist Annalee Newitz. https://www.theivybookshop.com/upcomingevent/23574 

Thursday, May 13 at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific hosted online by the University Bookstore in Seattle, I get to have a conversation with the brilliant short story writer Ted Chiang. https://www.eventbrite.com/.../sarah-pinsker-in... 

I'll sign the Ivy's stock in person, so I can personalize those books, and I'm supposed to be signing bookplates for the University Bookstore. I'll also try to get to as many other Maryland bookstores as I can, including Atomic Books, Greedy Reads, and Caprichos Books, until I can travel to other places. 

Ordering ahead of time tells stores (and my publisher) that people want to read my book! If you want to buy from an indie bookstore, Indiebound can help you find one: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781984802606 
Bookshop.org is also a great way to shop if you don't have a favorite local: https://bookshop.org/books/we-are-satellites/9781984802606 
There'll also be an ebook available everywhere and an audiobook. 

Reserving it at the library is great too! You don't need to buy to make a difference in an author's life. Library reserves and online reviews help spread the word too. 

In music news, I am trying to actually finally make the next album happen in the next couple of months, and I'll let you know when it does. 
In sort-of-kind-of music news, I have a weird story called "Where Oaken Hearts do Gather"  in Uncanny Magazine that might amuse those of you who have ever poked around the websites where people try to figure out lyric meanings. It's a story about an old ballad, as told through the lyrics and attempts to explain them... and because I couldn't resist, I recorded a version of the ballad. A link to the song on youtube is hidden in the story. It was a quick and messy recording, but it'll have to tide you over until I finally get this album out the door in late June. 

But first, a book! 

[image error]I hope you love Val, Julie, David, and Sophie as much as I do.

My 2020 Year in Fiction

My 2020 year in fiction  

(Skip to the bottom if you just want the eligibility post, like a recipe; the beginning is reflection) 

Well, I just looked back at what I wrote last year, and my 2019 summation post ended with "My wish for all of us is to have as good a year in 2020 as this dog did in 2019." Ha. Haha. Sob. In fact, for another year in a row, I don't think any of us had it as good as Sprocket did. This time, he didn't even have to deal with me leaving to travel. I'm still on the tank of gas I bought in July, which was the only one I bought after March.

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Parts of my novel came true, and more parts are coming true every day. Just yesterday I read about an artist who did an online concert in a virtual recreation of a club that doesn't exist anymore. I find that my decision to concentrate on the Before and After while skipping the During results in an odd sense of discovery that I can pass off as premonition. It's very weird to watch what was absolutely supposed to be fiction become nonfiction. I spent a lot of time explaining that Luce isn't anti-social distancing, and her club came years later, and she wouldn't advocate for secret underground shows in the middle of a pandemic; music is community, and infecting those around you with a deadly virus is not punk. I wish I'd anticipated masks.  

It's hard to reflect on a year in fiction divorced from the larger circumstance. The fact that I only had a handful of stories come out this year has nothing to do with the pandemic, and everything to do with a) having two books come out last year, with all attendant promotion, and b) the most overbooked spring of my entire life, pandemic notwithstanding. It turns out that teaching, editing a novel, and trying to get state legislation passed all eat up a lot of time, and writing is the thing that was most easily pushed back. 

If I have fewer stories out next year, that will be the more direct result of this year's panicked brain fog. I've managed to write more since August, at least, including a handful of stories I'm really happy with, and a good start on a new novel. I've learned my limits this year, in a few different ways. I'm hoping this is a lesson that will stick. 

Some good things came out of this year for me personally.  A Song For A New Day won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and Sooner or Later Everything Fell Into the Sea won the Philip K. Dick Award, and those books and my novelette "The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye" got variously nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Compton Crook, and World Fantasy Award, which they lost to other wonderful works. I watched a lot of Zoom award ceremonies and got to celebrate everyone's wins in new and interesting ways.   

We sold translation rights in a bunch of other languages, and I'm excited to see those released. There are beautiful UK hardcovers of both books now from Head of Zeus.  

I taught my first college semester. I had a blast working with brilliant, motivated young writers, and I'm looking forward to doing it again this coming spring. I taught a super fun fiction camp for teenagers, and a bunch of one-off workshops.

I turned in final drafts of We Are Satellites, which is available for pre-order now before its May release, and which I'm excited for you to read.  Tor.com posted a cover reveal and excerpt here.

I learned how to slow down a bit, to not say yes to every online event, to take extra dog walks instead. More than ever, I recognize my neighbors by their dogs, since their faces are masked, but we're all friendlier than ever, from across the street. I learned the names of my neighborhood's trees and the exact date at which each plant flowers. I developed new reward systems. Some of the old ones still work too. Most of them are food.  

I bought a lot of music and books, but had to remind myself how to read for pleasure, since that disappeared briefly in the spring. I read in different genres than I usually do. I tried to keep all my favorite restaurants, coffeeshops, bookstores, clubs, musicians, and farmers in business. I watched everyone pivot to new ways of doing things. I discovered how much of my writing habits depended on coffeeshops, and worked on new habits. I know exactly how lucky I am that I have a job I can do from home, and I'm thankful for all those whose work allowed me to do so.  I found new appreciation on top of my already bounding appreciation for nurses, doctors, researchers, journalists, teachers, postal workers, sanitation engineers, store clerks, delivery people, and everyone who helps keep our society running.

I found new ways to connect with family and friends and colleagues, while missing the old ways. I got to read to my niece over the internet, at the exact age when she has enough attention span for remote reading, and in the exact moment when her online capacity wasn't yet overfilled with school. I meet up with friends to write and chat online. 

I did have a few stories come out, and I got to work with three of my favorite anthology editors for the first time, which leads to this eligibility post: 

NOVELETTE: 

"Two Truths And A Lie," Tor.com, June 2020. Edited by Ellen Datlow. 11000 words I think? Dark fantasy/horror. I’m very proud of this creepy piece.  

SHORT STORY: 

"La Mer Donne," Avatars Inc. anthology edited by Ann VanderMeer, March 2020. SF. There's a cat. Check out the super cool website and anthology.

"Bigger Fish," Made to Order anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan, March 2020. SF/mystery.  

"Notice," Us in Flux online project, June 2020. SF. This was a really cool project, and you should check out the other stories and conversations in the series. 

UK EDITIONS

Did I mention that A Song For A New Day and Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea both got gorgeous UK hardcover editions? 

Still forthcoming: There's one more lighter-side near future SF story that'll hit right at the close of the year from Escape Pod.  

So yes, 2020 happened. Here's truly hoping for a better 2021 for all of us. 

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ps It's snowing right now, huge flakes that don't even look real. It was sixty degrees this weekend and the roses haven't stopped blooming all year.

 

My 2019 Year in Fiction

 

(If you're just here for my list of original fiction for 2019, just scroll to the bottom)

2019 has been one interesting year for me personally. For starters, when our Bo dog died in October 2018 at 17 years old, we swore we wouldn't get another dog for at least a year. It seemed like it would be a lot to deal with in a year where my first two books were scheduled to come out, but we only made it to the first week of February before we adopted Sprocket. Bo was a character and a half, and I still miss him, but he wasn't the most affectionate dog. Sprocket, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to be with us, or preferably on us. He has tons of terrier energy and walks me a lot.

I started the year with a very eventful trip to South Africa with Zu. Eventful for the air travel shenanigans, but while we were in one of the parks, we also got to see giraffes fight, spotted lions crossing the road after a meal (check out the full belly on the cub!), had to shoo a baboon out of the kitchen, and rescued a hornbill who got a foot caught in the car hood while trying to eat the windshield wipers.

Worldcon was in Dublin, so I got to go to Dublin in August. In between my panels at the convention, I rode an adorable Irish horse who I would happily have taken home with me and got to see the stunning Trinity College library. My 2018 story "The Court Magician" lost the Hugo while I was there. It was also a finalist for the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award, both of which it also lost. In all cases, the finalist lists were fantastic and I was honored to be among them. 

With two books out this year, I got to do some touring, including readings and signings in Orlando, Nashville, Los Angeles, Asheville, Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Baltimore, and New York, among other places, at amazing events that wouldn't be possible without indie booksellers like Parnassus Books, Scuppernong, Caprichos, East City, Skylight, Flyleaf, Malaprop's, Bluestockings, and Atomic Books. I braved New York Comic Con and BookCon (so many people!). I had two wonderful book release parties, one at the Ivy  and one at Bird in Hand. Both release parties were attended by friends and family and curious strangers from near and far, and I'm so grateful to everyone who made them joyous events.

 

. 

 

 

So yeah, the books. I didn't know how exhausting it would be to have two books come out in the same year while also writing another one. When I put it into words like that, it kinda makes sense. The two experiences, small press collection and big press novel, were different in some ways, but both were a joy to work with. It's all about the people, and the people at both publishers -- from editors to publicists to cover artists -- did an amazing job taking my stories and turning them into my very own books.

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea came out in March from Small Beer Press. It contains a bunch of my previously published stories and one original novelette, "The Narwhal." (Hence the narwhal cookie on the cookie tray above, and a whole bunch of awesome narwhal gifts people have given me, including books, puzzles, beers, and an epic crochet.) Recorded Books also produced an amazing audio version. The collection got a whole bunch of starred reviews and the wonderful Charles de Lint wrote of it "We're only a handful of months into the new year, but I'm pretty sure that Sarah Pinsker's collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea will be the best book I read in 2019. If I'm wrong, I've got something really special to look forward to, because the quality of these stories is simply stellar...I love the sense of hope that permeates even the most hopeless of situations. I love the way the characters, their problems, and the settings they move through stay with me beyond the confines of the book's pages. I love every damn thing about these stories. When I got to the last page I was already looking forward to rereading them."

 

A Song For A New Day came out from Berkley (Penguin Random House)  in September. It was edited by the wonderful Rebecca Brewer. It got blurbs from some of my favorite writers, including Elizabeth Hand, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, Kelly Link, Ann Leckie, and more, and starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and more. The wonderful music writer Jason Heller named it his favorite book of 2019, and it made it into the 2019 NPR Book Concierge, which was definitely a square on my writer bingo card. PRH did an excellent audio version with two talented actors narrating the alternating points of view.

(Another bingo card item: Locus Magazine interviewed me for a cover story!)

I am so proud of both my collection and my novel, both of which are beautiful books that represent me as well as anything could.

Despite touring two books and writing another during this year, I also managed to get a few stories out the door. 

My 2019 original fiction:

"That Our Flag Was Still There" is a science fiction short story that appeared in the Parvus Press anthology If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo.
"The Narwhal" is a novelette that appeared in my collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea. It  features a very cool art car and a very tense road trip.
"Everything is Closed Today" is a science fiction short story that appeared in the Apex Books anthology Do Not Go Quietly. (It's also related to A Song For A New Day!)

"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye" is a dark fantasy novelette that is available free online  in Uncanny Magazine. Erika Ensign read it for their podcast as well, and did a terrific job.
A Song For A New Day, MY OWN FIRST NOVEL!!!

 

So yeah, that was my year in fiction, plus some bonus animals. I spent most of the year drafting another novel, so now I'm looking forward to everything I missed reading this year. Feel free to tell me all your favorite books and stories and dogs of 2019 in the comments!

My wish for all of us is to have as good a year in 2020 as this dog did in 2019.

 

 

 

My 2019 Year in Fiction

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(If you're just here for my list of original fiction for 2019, just scroll to the bottom)

2019 has been one interesting year for me personally. For starters, when our Bo dog died in October 2018 at 17 years old, we swore we wouldn't get another dog for at least a year. It seemed like it would be a lot to deal with in a year where my first two books were scheduled to come out, but we only made it to the first week of February before we adopted Sprocket. Bo was a character and a half, and I still miss him, but he wasn't the most affectionate dog. Sprocket, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to be with us, or preferably on us. He has tons of terrier energy and walks me a lot.

I started the year with a very eventful trip to South Africa with Zu. Eventful for the air travel shenanigans, but while we were in one of the parks, we also got to see giraffes fight, spotted lions crossing the road after a meal (check out the full belly on the cub!), had to shoo a baboon out of the kitchen, and rescued a hornbill who got a foot caught in the car hood while trying to eat the windshield wipers.

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Worldcon was in Dublin, so I got to go to Dublin in August. In between my panels at the convention, I rode an adorable Irish horse who I would happily have taken home with me and got to see the stunning Trinity College library. My 2018 story "The Court Magician" lost the Hugo while I was there. It was also a finalist for the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award, both of which it also lost. In all cases, the finalist lists were fantastic and I was honored to be among them. 

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With two books out this year, I got to do some touring, including readings and signings in Orlando, Nashville, Los Angeles, Asheville, Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Baltimore, and New York, among other places, at amazing events that wouldn't be possible without indie booksellers like Parnassus Books, Scuppernong, Caprichos, East City, Skylight, Flyleaf, Malaprop's, Bluestockings, and Atomic Books. I braved New York Comic Con and BookCon (so many people!). I had two wonderful book release parties, one at the Ivy  and one at Bird in Hand. Both release parties were attended by friends and family and curious strangers from near and far, and I'm so grateful to everyone who made them joyous events.

 

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So yeah, the books. I didn't know how exhausting it would be to have two books come out in the same year while also writing another one. When I put it into words like that, it kinda makes sense. The two experiences, small press collection and big press novel, were different in some ways, but both were a joy to work with. It's all about the people, and the people at both publishers -- from editors to publicists to cover artists -- did an amazing job taking my stories and turning them into my very own books.

[image error]

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea came out in March from Small Beer Press. It contains a bunch of my previously published stories and one original novelette, "The Narwhal." (Hence the narwhal cookie on the cookie tray above, and a whole bunch of awesome narwhal gifts people have given me, including books, puzzles, beers, and an epic crochet.) Recorded Books also produced an amazing audio version. The collection got a whole bunch of starred reviews and the wonderful Charles de Lint wrote of it "We're only a handful of months into the new year, but I'm pretty sure that Sarah Pinsker's collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea will be the best book I read in 2019. If I'm wrong, I've got something really special to look forward to, because the quality of these stories is simply stellar...I love the sense of hope that permeates even the most hopeless of situations. I love the way the characters, their problems, and the settings they move through stay with me beyond the confines of the book's pages. I love every damn thing about these stories. When I got to the last page I was already looking forward to rereading them."

[image error]

 

A Song For A New Day came out from Berkley (Penguin Random House)  in September. It was edited by the wonderful Rebecca Brewer. It got blurbs from some of my favorite writers, including Elizabeth Hand, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, Kelly Link, Ann Leckie, and more, and starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and more. The wonderful music writer Jason Heller named it his favorite book of 2019, and it made it into the 2019 NPR Book Concierge, which was definitely a square on my writer bingo card. PRH did an excellent audio version with two talented actors narrating the alternating points of view.

(Another bingo card item: Locus Magazine interviewed me for a cover story!)

I am so proud of both my collection and my novel, both of which are beautiful books that represent me as well as anything could.

Despite touring two books and writing another during this year, I also managed to get a few stories out the door. 

My 2019 original fiction:

"That Our Flag Was Still There" is a science fiction short story that appeared in the Parvus Press anthology If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo."The Narwhal" is a novelette that appeared in my collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea. It  features a very cool art car and a very tense road trip."Everything is Closed Today" is a science fiction short story that appeared in the Apex Books anthology Do Not Go Quietly. (It's also related to A Song For A New Day!)
"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye" is a dark fantasy novelette that is available free online  in Uncanny Magazine. Erika Ensign read it for their podcast as well, and did a terrific job.A Song For A New Day, MY OWN FIRST NOVEL!!!

 

So yeah, that was my year in fiction, plus some bonus animals. I spent most of the year drafting another novel, so now I'm looking forward to everything I missed reading this year. Feel free to tell me all your favorite books and stories and dogs of 2019 in the comments!

My wish for all of us is to have as good a year in 2020 as this dog did in 2019.

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My 2018: Books, Stories, & Muppets, Oh, My

What a year. I find it harder and harder to write these year's end wrap-ups because it's hard to talk about what's happened in my life without the larger context. Many American writers I know are still looking for ways to be productive while our own government inflicts trauma after trauma; for others, it was always like that. When I make this list of my own accomplishments, I'm conscious of the ways I'm still struggling, the ways I'm lucky, and the ways luck and hard work combine.

This was the year I sold three books. The first, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, will be released by Small Beer Press on March 19th. It's available for pre-order now! Working with Small Beer has been a joy, and this collection is exactly what I wanted it to be, in every way. I'm so happy that the early reviews are positive. Here's the Kirkus review ("Pinsker has delivered a sturdy collection in the speculative tradition of Ursula K. Le Guin or Kelly Link but with her own indomitable voice front and center.) (!!!), and here's the Publishers Weekly starred review.

 My first novel, A Song For A New Day, will be released by the Penguin/Random House subsidiary Berkley in September. It's been fascinating learning the different rhythms of the novel/big five world. My editor, Rebecca Brewer, gets the work and pushes me in all the best ways. My agent, Kim-Mei Kirtland, has been there to answer all my questions; I have a lot of questions. 

This was the year my novelette Wind Will Rove was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus and Asimov's Readers' Poll Award. 

This was the year my novella "And Then There Were (N-One)" was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and Eugie Foster Memorial Award. 

Thank you to everyone who read and nominated those two stories, both of which I'm exceedingly proud of. 

I went to several wonderful conventions, including: the Nebulas, where I got to meet Telly Monster and be a muppet; Worldcon, where I saw Pixar and the Winchester Mystery House and hung out with giant disco Predators; and World Fantasy Convention, where I got to play guitar with some of my favorite author-musicians. 

 

I didn't get to write as many short stories as usual this year, as a result of all the book edits. That'll probably reflect in next year as well. I miss short fiction, and I'm hoping to carve time to write some stories I've been sitting on. 

I think I had four new stories and a novelette out this year? Also an essay in Clarkesworld, In Praise of Taking it Slow, which may contribute to another reason why my stories are few and far between right now.

Novelette: Escape From Caring Seasons appeared in Twelve Tomorrows. I was honored to write for that esteemed MIT project. Near future. 

Short stories:

The Court Magician – fantasy – Lightspeed Magazine, January 2018 (also podcast)

Do As I Do, Sing As I Sing  - science fantasy – Beneath Ceaseless Skies #246, March 2018

I Frequently Hear Music in the Heart of Noise – fantasy – Uncanny Magazine #21, March/April 2018 (also podcast)

Lost & Found - Whose Future Is It? Cellarius Stories, Volume I– December 2018 

 Plus reprints in Neil Clarke and Rich Horton's Year's Best anthologies and the very cool Sunspot Jungle, among others, and a monthlong serialization of And Then There Were (N-One) at Escape Pod.

 I'm grateful to all of you who read and talk about my stories, and everyone who reads and talks about fiction in general. 

Looking forward to a great (and busy) 2019!

 

My 2018: Books, Stories, & Muppets, Oh, My

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What a year. I find it harder and harder to write these year's end wrap-ups because it's hard to talk about what's happened in my life without the larger context. Many American writers I know are still looking for ways to be productive while our own government inflicts trauma after trauma; for others, it was always like that. When I make this list of my own accomplishments, I'm conscious of the ways I'm still struggling, the ways I'm lucky, and the ways luck and hard work combine.

This was the year I sold three books. The first, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, will be released by Small Beer Press on March 19th. It's available for pre-order now! Working with Small Beer has been a joy, and this collection is exactly what I wanted it to be, in every way. I'm so happy that the early reviews are positive. Here's the Kirkus review ("Pinsker has delivered a sturdy collection in the speculative tradition of Ursula K. Le Guin or Kelly Link but with her own indomitable voice front and center.) (!!!), and here's the Publishers Weekly starred review.

 My first novel, A Song For A New Day, will be released by the Penguin/Random House subsidiary Berkley in September. It's been fascinating learning the different rhythms of the novel/big five world. My editor, Rebecca Brewer, gets the work and pushes me in all the best ways. My agent, Kim-Mei Kirtland, has been there to answer all my questions; I have a lot of questions. 

This was the year my novelette Wind Will Rove was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus and Asimov's Readers' Poll Award. 

This was the year my novella "And Then There Were (N-One)" was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and Eugie Foster Memorial Award. 

Thank you to everyone who read and nominated those two stories, both of which I'm exceedingly proud of. 

I went to several wonderful conventions, including: the Nebulas, where I got to meet Telly Monster and be a muppet; Worldcon, where I saw Pixar and the Winchester Mystery House and hung out with giant disco Predators; and World Fantasy Convention, where I got to play guitar with some of my favorite author-musicians. 

 [image error]

I didn't get to write as many short stories as usual this year, as a result of all the book edits. That'll probably reflect in next year as well. I miss short fiction, and I'm hoping to carve time to write some stories I've been sitting on. 

I think I had four new stories and a novelette out this year? Also an essay in Clarkesworld, In Praise of Taking it Slow, which may contribute to another reason why my stories are few and far between right now.

Novelette: Escape From Caring Seasons appeared in Twelve Tomorrows. I was honored to write for that esteemed MIT project. Near future. 

Short stories:

The Court Magician – fantasy – Lightspeed Magazine, January 2018 (also podcast)

Do As I Do, Sing As I Sing  - science fantasy – Beneath Ceaseless Skies #246, March 2018

I Frequently Hear Music in the Heart of Noise – fantasy – Uncanny Magazine #21, March/April 2018 (also podcast)

Lost & Found - Whose Future Is It? Cellarius Stories, Volume I– December 2018 

 Plus reprints in Neil Clarke and Rich Horton's Year's Best anthologies and the very cool Sunspot Jungle, among others, and a monthlong serialization of And Then There Were (N-One) at Escape Pod.

 I'm grateful to all of you who read and talk about my stories, and everyone who reads and talks about fiction in general. 

Looking forward to a great (and busy) 2019!