Awards Eligibility 2024, Jennifer R. Donohue

These are my awards-eligible works published in 2024, and where to find them!

novelette:

"The Ensanguined Shore" (~9700 words) appeared in issue 68 of The Future Fire

short stories:

"In the Pines" (5125 words) appeared in issue 297 of Interzone

"Auguries" (4500 words) appeared in issue 3 of Gamut (and is free to read on my Patreon)

"doorbell dot mov" (1500 words) appeared in issue 34 of The Deadlands

novella: 

 Run With the Hunted 7: The Casino Job (37000 words)

 

This ongoing series is also eligible for best series! (series total is ~245,000 words thus far)

novels:

Learn to Howl

Baying the Moon

The Company of Wolves

"doorbell dot mov" by Jennifer R. Donohue, in The Deadlands issue #34 (spring 2024)

 I like to think that I update this blog once a year, whether I need to or not (and I guess I need to, for awards eligibility ease)

And so I didn't make an actual post when my short story, "doorbell dot mov", appeared in issue #34 of The Deadlands, which was the Spring 2024 issue.

It's a very short story, 1500 words, and it's inspired by those youtube videos that are like, "what you'll see on this doorbell camera will shock you" or whatever. You know, spooky found footage stuff that's often in compilations. 

The Deadlands has been a goal market for me since day one of its existence. Short stories about death? That's my deal. Additionally, they've got a broader publishing imprint, Psychopomp, which publishes novellas and novelettes.

I'm talking about this all for a few reasons. One, "doorbell dot mov" has been reviewed in Locus twice now, and recommended both times by the reviewers! (Paula Guran and A.C. Wise). "doorbell dot mov" is a story that's awards-eligible for 2024 (so that's, a big list. The Nebula, the Stoker, the Hugo, Shirley Jackson, Subjective Chaos, whatever the award they give out at Dragoncon is called, etc. etc. etc.) so if you're in a story-nominating mood and like my writing, keep that in mind!

And the final reason is that Psychopomp is fundraising for 2025 and to that end, they sell coins for the ferryman. There's also a limited edition pin, and beyond that you can buy the novellas, the 2024 print issues, a 2025 digital subscription, etc. etc. so check it out!

Out now! "I Am Tasting the Stars" in Translunar Travelers' Lounge

New story day!

My latest, "I Am Tasting the Stars" is out now in Translunar Travelers' Lounge! 

This has been an interesting market to try and crack (as we in the business say), as part of their stipulation is that they want fun stories. And in many ways, fun is subjective and arguable, and in other ways, it really very much is not. If you're familiar with my stories, 'fun' isn't really one of the main themes you might consider me to typically cover.

It is both a climate change story, and a 'the bombs dropped' story, told by a narrator who was nine years old when the word that was ended. And back then, when the world ended, she made a list of the things that should be gathered and saved and experienced, so that people would remember. The last item on the list is the one this story concerns itself with, a bottle of champagne.

Please go read it, and I hope you enjoy! Maybe fun isn't what I normally write, but even so, it is a very 'me' story!

Available now, in The Future Fire: "The Mountain's Wife"

A few years ago, I read a couple of longform articles on Mt. Everest and the way that sometimes bodies became like landmarks to other climbers, and the subsequent recovery efforts that were made to get those deceased climbers down off the mountain. In the way of things, it left an impression, but kind of just got loaded into my subconscious. 

And that's where "The Mountains Wife" came from. It's a fantasy story, maybe a little bit of a horror story. There are dogs but (spoilers) the dogs are okay.  The narrator (and indeed, almost everybody in the story) is unnamed, another of my hallmarks.

The Future Fire does a great job when it comes to publishing (This is my second story with them; last year, they published "Know They Will Die, Under the Salt of It.") Their editing is smooth and reasonable, and stories have illustrations! What a luxury, as an author, to have an illustrated story.

Additionally, this is my 29th short story publication! This does count prints and reprints, but it is 29 times that somebody read my story, said "Yes, we want to publish this" and did! 

Stay tuned next month for number 30...

"All This Darkness" out now in Apex Magazine!

 My latest short story is now available in issue 123 of Apex Magazine! It will be free to read on June 1, but the full issue is only $4.99 if you can't bear to wait. It's called "All This Darkness," from the Bruce Springsteen song "Land of Hope and Dreams." 

It isn't about Bruce Springsteen, though, and it isn't a New Jersey story. It's inspired by Shamokin, Pennsylvania, where my grandparents come from. It was a coal mining town, until the mines closed, and so my story is about the generation of kids that thought they would graduate high school (or not) and go to work in the mines, like their parents before them. Until the mines closed. And then they went into the mountain anyway.

I do hope you'll give it a read, and enjoy! They also interviewed me, which was really fun and interesting.

Edited to add: Here is the direct link to my story: https://apex-magazine.com/all-this-darkness/

Get the latest! "How Do You Grow?"

 My latest short story is available to read in issue 4 of Hexagon magazine! 

It is called "How Do You Grow?" and is about symbiotic teeth, and growing up, and the things that adults tell children sometimes as they're growing up. The title is from the Anne Sexton poem "Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman"

In his Quick Sip Review, Charles Payseur calls it "an unsettling but effective read," and I do tend to trust Charles' judgement. 

New short story! "Sailing to Byzantium" now available in Fusion Fragment (issue 4)

 One of the stories nearest and dearest to my heart, "Sailing to Byzantium," is now available in Fusion Fragment magazine's 4th issue!

It is a pay what you want PDF, or you can get a physical issue or $23.99 Canadian. They sent me a contributor's copy, and it is a very high production print work!

If you liked some of my other short stories, "Daddy's Girl" and "For Whatever We Lose" specifically, then this story is an examination of similar themes.

It's a story that was rejected by some as too literary, and by others as too genre, and I'm still not really sure what to call it necessarily. But it's found its home, and I hope that it is read widely! Tell your friends!

Now Available! "Know They Will Die, Under the Salt of It" in The Future Fire

 My science fiction short story "Know They Will Die, Under the Salt of It" is now available to read in The Future Fire!

I wrote this story in 2018, after I happened across an article in Outside about freediving. So then I read three more. I didn't really know what I was going to do with it yet, but that's just part of my process; I just put as much into my brain as I care to, and stories come out, some sooner, some later. 

The title come from the Carl Sandburg poem "Young Sea" and it is a title that I'm happy with. I feel like it both catches the freediver spirit, and the reality of those who live by the ocean and work closely with it,  and also the reality of what is happening in the story itself. 

This is one of two stories that I've written about not-really-successful space colonies; the other is "Black Market Cheerios," and appeared earlier this year in Lamplight Volume 8, Issue 2. They are not related stories in any further sense; they don't share characters or anything. But they are both stories that I am very pleased with, and I am happy that they have found homes!

Now Available: Hear Me Roar

 Hear Me Roar is now available!

In my previous post, I promised to update for paperback preorders but, there weren't any. But you can buy the paperback now!

There are already a number of reviews for it on Amazon and on Goodreads, which is excellent! At least one of them mentions my story, "Defend Us in Battle", which is also excellent! The response seems to, in general, be positive.

That's a great table of contents, and I'm pleased to be sharing it with these authors! Rhonda is great to work with (see also Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline for my short story "One Hundred Years") and so I was pleased to repeat the experience!

If you don't want to order from Amazon, Rhonda Parrish lists a number of venues on her website! She also makes the excellent point that you can request that your local library order it! And your library doesn't have to order it through Amazon either; it is available on Ingram (I just checked), which also means that if that's how your local bookstore orders, you can ALSO get it through them! Support your local bookstore! Support your local library!

Hear Me Roar anthology pre-orders!

 Hello readers!

I have a short story coming out in an anthology later this month! Edited by Rhonda Parrish, Hear Me Roar will be out on September 22. 

(that's right, sports fans, Rhonda Parrish is also the anthologist for Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline)

It is called "Defend Us in Battle," and is about a girl whose dad is in a dragonslaying motorcycle club. Essentially.

Currently, you can preorder the digital version here; I'm told that the paperback preorders will happen soon, and I will do my best to remember to update here with a link to that!

Coming soon! "Nothing Left But Mud" with Sword & Kettle press

Hello! I have news for you!

A few months ago (March?) I got a story rejection and took to twitter, saying something along the lines of "due to current events, I'm not sure this scifi story is even scifi anymore" and called it a maybe-apocalypse at the Jersey Shore, about horseshoe crabs and stuff. Because I am g r e a t at summarizing things in zippy and compelling ways.

Well, Kayla Allen who owns Sword & Kettle press asked me to send it to her. And then Kayla said "hey, we'd like to publish this, what do you think?" and I said "Yes, please and thank you!"  (further summarizing, of course.

So now, Friday July 31, 2020 is when my short story "Nothing Left But Mud" will become digitally available through Sword & Kettle press, with a physical little book version of it coming sometime after!

Art is by Anna-Rose Schenerman and LOOK AT IT



The title comes from the Rudyard Kipling story "The Crab Who Played With the Sea" (and that crab is not a horseshoe crab, but it was still...thematic, y'know?) and the story is about a pandemic, and being home with your parents at the Jersey Shore, and trying to survive, and trying to maintain hope. I wrote a hopeful store for once, gentle readers! I am very excited for it, and I do hope you read it and enjoy!

 It is now for sale digitally on the Sword & Kettle Etsy store!, and I'll update when the physical copy is available.

REPRINT Publication! "For Whatever We Lose," in Escape Pod

This month, Escape Pod is doing a run of space-themed stories. First up? My short story "For Whatever We Lose," first published last year in Luna Station Quarterly.

It's always interesting listening to one of my stories be podcast; I'm the only one who reads my stories the way I read my stories, if that makes sense. So hearing my words in not-my-voice is a fascinating experience! Phoebe Barton's comments at the end were also excellent.

So, if you missed it last year, or if you just want to revisit, do please go to Escape Pod and give the story a listen! Plus, tell your friends!

image of Phobos from NASA

April.....fools?

So hi

What's been going on?

I hope you are well

Because. Um. Yeah. Lots going wrong in the world, isn't there?

I'm happy to report, for my part, that while the library is closed, my coworkers and I all still have jobs. Many of us even have job duties that we can still perform from home. This is a privilege that I am VERY thankful for; I feel unbelievably lucky.

And we're seeing now just how much libraries can still do from home. There are digital escape rooms, there are livestreamed storytimes (with many publishers and children's book authors generously saying "yes, it's okay to read my books for these." Many ebook lending restrictions have been lifted, and I know at my library, Hoopla, our newer streaming service, has been wildly popular. Run With the Hunted, et al will eventually be added to Hoopla...Draft2Digital started that process back in like, November, and I think both services were unprepared for how many people were gonna say yes all at once.

One of those work-from-home things is my writing group. We've just had a big email ol' email chain, that I kick off each Saturday with a collection of writing prompts, and people who feel up to it send back what they came up with. I've been working on a short story in this way, bit by bit, prompt by prompt. I'm not really sure how it will end up, but that's taking shape. It's interesting to write in that way, letting people read it as you go, instead of after you've ironed out the wrinkles and tacked down the edges and done things like give people names (....whoops...)


I've been putting the prompts on my Patreon, for free. And I'm going to link the ones I've got so far right here:

Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 1
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 2
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 3
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 4
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 5
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 6

In addition to that, I've been working on Run With the Hunted 3: subtitle to be determined, and making satisfactory progress on that. I've even got a coveer in the works! So I'll let you know here, and everywhere, when there are pre-orders for that.

I also plan to do an omnibus that collects the first three novellas under one roof, as it were. I'm thinking hardcover AND paperback for that, which means I'll be wrangling with the Ingram book formatting program. So that'll be a new experience! And then I'll  need a cover for THAT too. So...any suggestions would be welcome!

And last but not least, I've had two short stories published so far this year! The first is "For Thine is the Kingdom", which appeared in Truancy in January. The second is "Black Market Cheerios", which appeared in Lamplight Volume 8, Issue 2, in March.

For news along these lines,  you can subscribe to my TinyLetter, which I send out with slightly more frequency than I blog anymore (I used to blog a lot...I guess now you can tell that I'm writing more!)

Stay safe out there. Stay home if you can. It's a great time for reading, and for writing, if you can. Or baking bread, as so many people are doing. Or cross stitch or doing the plank challenge or binging everything you never got around to on various streaming services.

Until next time!

Publication! "The Pearls That Were His Eyes" in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine

Greetings!

My short story "The Pearls That Were His Eyes" has been published in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine issue #75! They are based in Australia, and there is no physical edition of the magazine, though the ebook is a pretty reasonable $4.95.

"The Pearls That Were His Eyes" is a weird story, I'm not gonna lie. It fits into the same witchy world as "Sugar and Spice" (reprinted this year in The Overcast) and "Be Careful What You Wish For" (available on my patreon and in HML Writers Volume 1) and opens with a witch making a contract with a non witch who knows that they exist but that's about the extent of it. But, he needs a door opened, and mundane means aren't getting the job done.

(contains a dog!)  (yes, he is fine)

It is thematically on point with all of my witch stories, which I actually did-and-didn't do on purpose. Like, every one of these stories has been about power and curiosity and hubris, and the choices that people make, but it isn't like I make an outline (hah) with these bullet points (hah) to make sure that I cover everything. It's just the nature of the beat I suppose.

So, I do hope you check it out, and I do hope you enjoy it!

ALSO, I have two forthcoming publications in September! "Fundamentals of Search and Rescue" will be in DreamForge magazine on September 1, and "One Hundred Years" will be in Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline on September 3, so preorder today!  (both contain dogs) (yes, the dogs are fine)

Happy June! It's like summertime!

Hello Friends! Did you miss me?

I have some news for you.

On May 18, my fiancé and I became *DRUMROLL*  husband and wife

We got together wayyyyyy back in college, in 2001, and we were engaged and bought a house and a dog together, and now every once in awhile we look at each other (even today, on our two week anniversary and say "we're married" with big dumb smiles on our faces).

My story came in first place at Syntax & Salt!

My latest short story "Aground, Upon the Sand" took first place in Syntax & Salt's Fall Flash Fiction contest. 

It's a story that, once it formed in my mind, didn't take very long to write. I didn't have a false start, but I did have a false ending, that I went back and rewrote. Originally, it didn't quite strike the right tone for me. Now it does. and it strikes that tone for others as well; as some of my twitter buddies have said, in the way of the internet, that it has given them Feels. So I hope you enjoy it as well.

Syntax & Salt has been very good to me indeed. My previous story with them, "Daddy's Girl", is on the Nebula Reading List. Nominations for the Nebulas start November 15 and run through February 15, so if you know any SFWA members, tell them to vote for me!

July 2017 goals roundup and Another Story Acceptance!

First thing's first: I got another story acceptance!  My short story "A Thing With Feathers" will be published in Mythic Delirum. I don't know when/what issue yet, so I'll keep you posted, but (obviously) I am super excited about this. A lot of amazing writers have been in their pages, including their most recent issue, which features JANE YOLEN, Mari Ness, Sandra Odell, Jennifer Crow (and many more).

I still have 14 other stories on submission (Well, 13, one is simultaneously submitted) and getting an acceptance has of course given me renewed hopes for those. Though I've said this before on Twitter (and maybe here too, I can't remember), I have to assume each time I send a story out that the answer will be yes. Otherwise, I would get far too discouraged and not send any out at all. So that's 14 potential "yeses" (well 13, as flattering as it would be to have two markets fight over one of my stories I think it would be very bad form on my part). I don't even know what I'd do if everything came back 'yes'. Fly apart with joy, I guess? With how many submissions I've sent out this year, and how I've been perpetually submitting in such volume, I probably won't separately do a month of "submit a story every day" in October as I have for the past couple of years. Part of the goal of that was to consistently be getting my stories into slush piles, and especially this year, I haven't slacked off on that.

But July, July was an interesting writing month. I rewrote not one but two short stories in July. And yes, I did in fact finish editing down The Last Song, fulfilling my CampNaNoWriMo goal. Now I need to write it back up again! And THEN I can query with it anew.

December 2016 and year end wrap up

Well, 2016, I hope you're happy with yourself. What a year. Everybody knows what I mean so we won't get into that because I don't want to and you can't make me.

So let's talk about writing! On January 1 of this year, I talked about my goals for 2016. I did not do the Book Riot Read Harder challenge, and actually only read 14 books this year. Lots of short stories, though. So I've got a goal related to that for 2017 that I'll squeeze another blog post out of.

2016 NaNoWriMo winner!

As I reported on November 20, NaNoWriMo went quite well for me. I validated my winning word count at 57,333 words, which I am quite pleased with.

I had several days in which I wrote only a couple of hundred words, and many more days in which I reached the minimum word count goal (1667) and still others where I wrote more than 4,000 words! All in all, I call that a productive month. 

However, I did not reach "the end", which really was my goal this year, especially with how well my word counts were going some day. However, I have still been working on it, which is unusual for my past NaNoWriMo experiences. Not 4k a day working on it, but some, and that's a pretty sharp contrast to "I validated I'm done now!"

Additionally, I rewrote one of my short stories, committing to making it actually science fiction. Previously it was just a little odd, a little Shirley Jackson-esque (think "The Lottery"), taking place in an unspecified place and time, perhaps a little old fashioned, but a war torn esque country. Well, I replaced the setting with an unnamed planetary settlement, replaced bombs with meteor showers, and thought "well...actually that works." We'll see. I've of course already submitted said story in its newest state (after letting it sit until November was done).

So I consider November to be quite the success. Even if I didn't write "The end" on the novel just yet ,I'm still considering under the umbrella of "write a new story every month". I just need to write a story in December now (have a couple of ideas knocking around already, if you can imagine such a thing), and this year's writing goals will be fulfilled!

August 2016 goals roundup

I finished my August Story early this month, so I blog early this month.

I really should blog more than once a month. You think? I think. Here's my best Elka picture to make up for it