Photo by Christine Kressel

Hi, and welcome to my website! Thanks for visiting!

The short:

I’m a speculative fiction writer with three Nebula Award nominations, one World Fantasy Award nomination, and a Eugie Award nomination. I am the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series. And I created the Moksha submissions system.

The long:

I’m a writer of speculative fiction, i.e., science fiction, fantasy, and horror. My fiction has been nominated three times for a Nebula Award and once for a Eugie Foster Memorial Award. I’ve also been nominated for a World Fantasy Award for my former editorial/publishing work. My fiction has been translated into many languages, including French, Chinese, Russian, Czech, and Polish.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved stories. I spent a lot of time alone as a child, and I would entertain myself by creating entire worlds in my head and inhabiting them fully (sometimes to the chagrin of my parents and teachers). This world-building continued well into my adulthood, when, after a particularly vivid dream that I had one afternoon, I decided to write my stories down. Once I began writing seriously, I’ve never stopped.

My fiction tends to explore themes of loss, death, mourning and rebirth, but also hope and possibility. I consider myself a mindful optimist: I believe humanity is capable of great feats, but what we often lack is will or imagination. It is not science fiction’s only job, but one of its most important jobs is to inspire people toward the possible. Therefore, why focus always on dystopia and apocalypse? Instead, especially in my later work, I tend toward alternate, visionary futures of humanity, one where we have solved most of the problems vexing us today.

I work incredibly hard at my writing, and my only wish is that you enjoy reading my work as much as I enjoy creating it.

My short story “The Last Novelist” was a 2017 Nebula Award finalist and a 2018 Eugie Award finalist. My short story “The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye” was a 2014 Nebula Award finalist. And my short story “The Sounds of Old Earth” was a 2013 Nebula Award finalist.

My many short stories have appeared in such publications as Lightspeed, Nightmare, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Analog, io9.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Electric Velocipede, Apex Magazine, and the anthologies Mad Hatters and March Hares, Cyber World, After,The People of the Book, and lots of other places.

My novel, King of Shards, was hailed as “Majestic, resonant, reality-twisting madness,” from NPR Books. 

Every third Wednesday, I co-host the Fantastic Fiction reading series at the famous KGB Bar alongside veteran speculative-fiction editor Ellen Datlow. 

To keep up to date with my fiction, subscribe to my mailing list.

In 2011 I was nominated for World Fantasy Award in the category of Special Award, Non-Professional for my work editing Sybil’s Garage. The magazine’s website has been archived here.

In 2003 I started the speculative fiction magazine Sybil’s Garage,  and the stories and poetry therein have received multiple honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.  Under the rubric of Senses Five Press, I published Paper Cities, which won the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.

I have been a long-time member of Altered Fluid, a Manhattan-based writing group which has many successful past and present members, including N.K. Jemisin, Sam J. Miller, Alaya Dawn Johnson, E.C. Myers, and others. I am also obsessed with the film Blade Runner.

When I’m not writing, I design websites and write code. I am probably most known for the Moksha submissions system, which I created, and which is currently used by some of the largest SF markets including The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Lightspeed, and many others.

I have designed websites and written code for Stanford University, Columbia University, the magazines Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, Fantasy, Future Science Fiction Digest, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, writers Genevieve Valentine, Nicholas Kaufmann, Chris Willrich, and many other large and small organizations, including IEEE, ADP, Alliance Bernstein, Vyve Broadband, Nikon, and many others. My business website is here.

You can contact me here and subscribe to my mailing list here. I would love to hear from you!