So this is a thing writers do, I hear: post a list of works eligible for the next round of science fiction and fantasy awards (Nebulas, Hugos, Locus Awards, the World Fantasy Awards, etc). Turns out, I wrote a few things this year that I’m particularly excited about. I love all of these stories for different reasons, but I think I’m most proud of The Siren and the Switch, which was my first semi-pro sale, and Overcome, which I wrote with Rowan Beckett Grigsby and which is set in a world we have been developing since we met. It’s our first official co-authored publication, though we’ve been writing together for years.

And so, the following works are eligible for nomination. If any of them pique your interest, links to purchase the anthologies are included, or you can email me directly and I will provide a copy of my story for your review (or just your enjoyment).

Short stories

• The Siren and the Switch (in Fantastic Trains: An Anthology of Phantasmagorical Engines and Rail Riders, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, September, 2019)

“Christine Hanolsy’s surreal “The Siren and the Switch” conjures a stunningly strange landscape and explores the potential destinies of those who travel through it.” —Publishers Weekly, 9/23/19

The Train is in your blood, my mother would have said, if she had lived. She’d said it of my father often enough. She would curl up on their bunk in our cramped residence-coupé and stare out into the Undertow night after night until we pulled into the next Station. Envara to Andalus Minor via Kazimir — that was our route, the only route I have ever traveled. Even through the Undertow it takes three months to traverse the Spur end to end. I celebrated my twelfth birthday halfway between Andalus and Kazimir and my thirteenth on-station at Envara. My mother braided ribbons into my heavy black hair.

• The Ocean Is Not My Lover (in Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove, Atthis Arts, May 2019)

It had been your idea to come here, to stay at Hotel Stormcove, to visit the mother of all oceans. When I pointed out that it wasn’t true, that there were innumerable oceans on innumerable worlds, and many of them older than Earth’s, you just laughed.

“We were born on her shores, we humans,” you had told me. “All other oceans might as well be reflections of hers.”

• Rain (in Itty Bitty Writing Place: A Flash Fiction Anthology, June 2019)

I remember the days before the burning of Verdure, before the great starships went away. Those last hours lined up like buckets, ready to catch whatever fell in. Just dribbles at first, rumors and best guesses, barely enough to dampen the soles of our boots. I dipped my cup in pail after pail. I filled my head with names and my mouth with the taste of ash, until the buckets overflowed and nobody saw it but me.

Novelette

• Overcome (with Rowan Beckett Grigsby (in Heroines & Hellions: A Sirens Benefit Anthology, September, 2019)

I said goodbye to Belyn Morrow three hundred yards from where I met her, at Fleet Academy on Agena Prime. It was the second hardest thing I had ever done.

Thanks for reading!