Hugo Announcement!

I am so beyond thrilled to announce that my spooky summer gothic story (with a twist we don't tell others about so they can enjoy the reveal!), When He Calls Your Name, has been nominated for a Hugo Award!

And god DAMN what an absolutely stacked category and overall ballot!

Thank you to anyone and everyone who nominated it, this really means so much to me. I am so proud of this story, and I had hoped it would find an audience, but it's always impossible to know what will or won't strike readers.

You might think, after 22 years and more than my fair share of ceremonies, it would be old hat and no big deal. Not even a little bit true. The first time I saw an email in my inbox saying I'd been nominated for a Hugo I felt like I'd been bodied by a speeding freight train--and the train got me this time, too. Just being read, spoken of, having my work acknowledged at all, beggars my heart. In this era? It beggars my everything.

All I ever wanted in my life was to write my little stories and have people read them. What a nomination like this says to me is that the dream happened, and that's the whole game, for me.

If you've been following me for a bit, you probably know I've been nominated...many times. I believe this is somehow my 13th nomination, which seems like madness. I have not actually won for fiction, though, or alone. Ever. Only as part of the old SF Squeecast gang. I'd joke that I'm the Susan Lucci of the Hugos...if I felt confident anyone remembers who Susan Lucci is.

So I don't really expect to win, especially against that incredible slate. And I'm not being self-deprecating when I say that's more than fine. Much like Suze, I long ago learned to focus on a pretty dress and a fun trip--and I'm on the hunt for my vampire gown as we speak! The honor really is the nomination, and I'm over the moon about it.

The awards will be given out at LAcon in August. Consider this your obligatory notice that anyone can vote with a supporting membership, and that supporting membership, while not free, comes with free copies of every nominated work. And the retail price of that package comes out to far more than the membership fee.

But all I really want to say is thank you. Thank you for all these years. And please keep reading fiction. Fiction written by human beings. Human beings working day over day over day toward that same dream I've had since I was a child: tell a story by the fire to other people and know it mattered to them, even if just a little.

See you in Los Angeles!