sarah salcedo

Awards Eligibility 2022

The leaves are turning, there’s a chill in the air, and it’s awards eligibility season once again. This is my second year posting a publication round-up. I made my first last year and this year, I’ve had the good fortune to publish with more great magazines and work with wonderful editors.

On top of publications, this year had other writing victories. I was able to join Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) with my sale of my novelette. I was also accepted into Tin House Winter Workshop, Tin House Summer Workshop, and was picked to be Town Hall Seattle’s Writer-in-Residence in the spring.

If you’re a member of SFWA, I’d love it if you considered nominating one of my SFF stories in the online ballot. If you’re not a member of SFWA, I’d love it if you read and shared my work.

Below are the stories and essays I’ve put out this year. I have a speculative creative nonfiction piece coming out in Identity Theory in mid-December, and I’ll update the list at that time.

2022 Publications

Novelette:

  • “Our Memories Are What We Fear Most” – Uncharted Magazine, May 2022. Science fiction.

An #actuallyautistic story of a mother, daughter, and the intergalactic war between the two. (SFWA Forum link)

Short Fiction:

A scifi-fairytale about a boy living alone in an abandoned space station. This story is actually in the same universe as the novelette above. (SFWA Forum link)

  • “The Sum of Two People” – HAD, January 2022. Literary flash fiction.

This is love story set in a series of math problems. I’m not a fan of math at all and this piece started as a joke. But I was surprised where the form took me. This became one of my favorite flash pieces.

A ghost story about football and bad fathers.

Essay:

  • “A Winter Vigil” - Identity Theory, December 2022.

  • “Baseball Marks the Time” - HAD, originally published in Hobart Magazine, April 2022.

Art:

My art was published this year in Hobart, HAD, and The Future Fire.

What’s next?

I’m currently finishing up my fantasy novel—a dragon pastoral about a family coming to terms with trauma and finding healing as a war that’s devastated their family continues with no end in sight—and revising my literary novel, The Ashes, a braided narrative featuring three generations of women in a small town featuring a neurodivergent protagonist. I’m also at work on a series of essays, three new short stories, and a feature screenplay.

I’m looking forward to what stories 2023 brings.

The End of Twitter, the Start of a Substack

So if you’re not terminally online, Twitter has changed a lot in the last month since it was purchased. Twitter has, for the last decade, been a crucial part of news-breaking, activism, organization, and the literary community. If the site goes away, or continues to be intentionally broken until it’s no longer usable, it’s going to hurt a lot of these communities.

Because of that, a lot of people have been trying to trade contacts with each other like we’re on the last day of summer camp. It’s endearing how hard we’re all trying to preserve our communities. I’ve been in a several digital migrations throughout my life and I’ve never seen people try as hard to prioritize connection before.

To that end, I started up a newsletter: https://sarahsalcedo.substack.com

It’s going to feature different content than the blog, and the blog will continue to feature its own content. My Patreon will also feature its own unique content (focusing on recipes, story previews, and art). If you’re like to follow along, I’m looking forward to sharing more writing with you. And for those of you leaving Twitter, you can find me elsewhere online below:

New Story up at Uncharted Magazine

New Story up at Uncharted Magazine

Part One of my novelette, “Our Memories Are What We Fear Most”, debuts at Uncharted Magazine today! This is a science fiction story about revolution, eugenics, ableism, and the heartbreak between mothers and daughters.

This is also an incredibly important story to me.

Writer-in-Residence Event: Speculative in Seattle

My next (and final!) Town Hall Seattle Writer-in-Residence event, “Speculative in Seattle”, is on May 23, in-person and online! Featuring amazing science fiction and fantasy authors Nisi Shawl, Seanan McGuire, Shiv Ramdas, (and me!) The event is co-sponsored by Clarion West.

You can get your tickets here. A comp code is up on my Patreon!

I hope you can join us!

Writer-in-Residence Event: Disability in Fiction with John Wiswell and Ross Showalter

Writer-in-Residence Event: Disability in Fiction with John Wiswell and Ross Showalter

After I was awarded my Town Hall Seattle residency, I was asked to curate two events to showcase my work and discuss aspects of my work and the communities I’m in that motivate me. For me, the first thing I wanted to do was an event about disability in fiction and invite two writers who inspire me: John Wiswell and Ross Showalter. On April 26, we met on the virtual Town Hall Seattle stage to share our fiction and discuss writing disability in fiction.

Below is our video, a transcript of our discussion, and a bibliography of works mentioned in the discussion.

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Hobart Magazine's Baseball Issue!

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I am so excited to share new artwork with you all… and my first piece of creative nonfiction too!

Hobart Magazine editor-in-chief Aaron Burch was amazing to work with on all three art pieces commissioned for the annual baseball-focused issue, as well as on my essay about the ‘89 World Series and falling in love with the magic of baseball as a kid in the Bay Area that was also featured in the issue.

You can read the essay here, and read the poems and stories I got to pick out by clicking on the image of the art I created for each piece.

Winter Light

It’s the end of February, and despite a constant brush of snow that’s moved through the region, temporarily frosting the woods around my house white until the next day’s light thaws it, spring feels near. I’m feeling the shifting of light. The slant of sun coming in through my window, turning the empty trunks of trees in the woods a gold-grey-green, waking up my jade plants so they stand a bit straighter, glow a bit more audaciously emerald, and the beginnings of buds are breaking through the bark on bare branches, daring to emerge despite the continued threat of snow. A few weeks ago, the light was so empty and thin, like most winter light is, but there’s a warmth returning in the hue of the sun, and while it’s still casting tilted noontime shadows through my moss-pocked yard, the promise of spring—of impending blossoms, of birds rioting in choruses hidden by a mass of unfurled maple leaves—is drawing near. And with the light, like always, my spirits lift.

sunlight filtered through trees in winter

Photo by Sarah Salcedo

I haven’t been on the blog much lately because my Patreon has been my main source of updating the world on what I’m doing. It will continue to be for the future: a place where I send out newsletters and posts, because for whatever reason, a few people in my life think me writing stories is something worth supporting. I’m so grateful for this at times baffling encouragement. I don’t even know some of the people who are supporting me, and that’s even stranger. I want to tell them new things first, because that faith they show in me has kept me going when the submission/revision process that writers have to go through has been too difficult.

If you’re here and not there, that’s fine. I’m posting here now for you, my sporadic reader. I’m grateful for you too, so here is some news that you may have missed.

In January, I had two stories come out: “The Sum of Two People” in Hobart After Dark, and “Offside, Otherside” in Words & Sports Quarterly.

These two pieces of flash fiction were unlike anything I’ve written, especially “The Sum of Two People”, a story I wrote after I was making fun of math problems to my sister. I’ve unfortunately had to defend my dislike of math after people have accused this piece of being a stealthy bit of pro-math propaganda, and I can assure you, that was never my intention. I would never intentionally try and make anyone learn or appreciate math. And, while it shouldn’t have to be said, I feel it must: no numbers were harmed in the fictionalized summations of this story.

In February, I attended my first juried workshop: Tin House Winter Workshop. This was a wonderful experience, even though COVID restrictions reshaped the structure of the event. It’s normally held in Portland, Oregon, but I got to sit at my desk, which I flipped to face my bed so I could attend this much-lauded workshop without showing the world a mountain of unfolded laundry. I aspire to many more classy literary experiences like these, staring at rumpled blankets and a disapproving cat who refuses to understand why I am not waving her feather toy for her and doesn’t appreciate the fact that, in all earnestness, I loved the workshop and felt immensely inspired by the lectures I virtually attended and the workshopping I did with my cohort.

Photo by Sarah Salcedo

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be hard at work on a new novel: a pastoral about trauma and how to heal when the world you’re living in refuses to turn over into a new season that allows you to easily leave anger and hurt and triggers behind you. How do you heal when there’s always a war on the periphery of your existence? I’ve written about 40,000 words so far, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I’m also revising a literary novel that I wrote years ago about a neurodivergent protagonist and her family. This has made finding an agent interesting—I’ve had offers from several people just interested in one book but not the other. I hold onto the hope that someone out there will want to represent the entirety of stories I tell, regardless of whether there are dragons or the unmagical reality of dysfunctional families. If you’re writing deep, the setting shouldn’t matter, and in fact, for many disabled and neurodivergent authors, speculative lit—or I should go more boldly—fantasy and science fiction particularly allow us to talk about things in ways we’re not allowed to talk about in mainstream literary circles.

To demonstrate my commitment to being difficult to pigeonholed at the onset of my writing career, the next two stories that are coming out are good ol’ fashioned science fiction.

I’m joking, of course.

These are two of my earliest stories that I’d written after I returned to writing after finishing Promised Land. It’s dumb luck that they’re coming out now, and even rarer luck still that they’re the only two stories I’ve written that occupy a shared universe.

On March 1, my story “Experiment Ninety-Four” reappears in Luna Station Quarterly. Caspian is one of my most beloved characters and it meant so much when he found a home last year in Collective Realms Magazine. Unfortunately, the editor-in-chief shuttered the magazine and deleted the site so after only two months, the story and my character were once again without a home. I’m thrilled LSQ has taken it in for their March 2022 issue, and I can’t wait for readers to get to know Caspian again.

Then in May, Uncharted Magazine will publish my story '“Our Memories Are What We Fear the Most” in two parts. It’s their first serialized story, and I’m honored that they made a word count exception for this novelette. It’s a story is about a mother and daughter separated by ableism and societal stigma against neurodivergence and disabilities. It looks at the role that memories have in our personal narratives, especially when it comes to holding family accountable. Its most outlandish feature is that this takes place in a future where gene editing has granted humanity longevity that borders on immortality. Gene editing, discrimination against autistic individuals, and spaceships are all in existence today. That I’m imagining a conversation between a mother and daughter who have been hurt and kept apart by ableist culture happening centuries from now should be dismissed as genre and not held in conversation with literature because these characters fly faster spaceships than our current ones makes me grumpy. But at the end of the day, there are so many brilliant authors having these conversations in (L)iterature, genre fiction, and the spaces in between. I just want my stories read, and you can call it what you want, but if the story works for you, then I’m happy.

Finally, we’re finishing up our first fiction script. Vasant is hard at work adapting one of my stories into a script and once he’s reached the end of the second draft, we’ll be going in to work on it together. This is different from our usual approach—simultaneous creation—but I’ve already had my chance with these characters since my imagination, strange enough to say, is where this script originated. I’m keeping my distance so that he can meet these characters and make them live inside his own head for a while before we start revising and figuring out the best visual way to make these people live and breath for audiences.

We always meant to make fiction films—documentaries were never a goal. But then Promised Land happened (and it’s still screening five years later) and we’re currently in production and pre-production on two new documentaries. We are excited and nervous to finally be coming back to the path we originally set out on: making up stories and telling them together. I am beyond excited to get into that.

I’ve been reading and watching a lot of media on creative process from people I respect—there will be a post tomorrow on my Patreon for subscribers about the books, articles, and movies I’m gleaning wisdom from and how it’s influencing the stories I’m telling this year, and the stories Vasant and I are telling together.

There is big news that I’ll be announcing later this week, but for now, this is a long enough update and I appreciate whoever took the time to read all of this, and/or any stories that may have brought you to my site. And again, if you want more and would like to help support me carving out time to write, away from website and film work, you can support me on Patreon and get recipes, art, and more frequent newsletters about what I’m thinking and what stories are our or in the works.

Thoughts to leave you with:

The world is a frightening place right now and positive actions, while maybe just a drop in the bucket at times, help me feel like I’m doing something other than pointlessly doom-scrolling. Here is a list of organizations you can donate to in order to help those suffering in Ukraine, and another list of organizations you can donate to in order to support trans youth in Texas.

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End of Year Round Up

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2021 Fiction, Poetry, & Art

Four of my illustrations from various publications (detailed below).

I’ve never written an End of Year Round Up / Awards Eligibility post before. Writing takes a while to get from a daydream you're trying to wrestle into words and the actual story you hold in your hands. I'm thrilled these stories made their way into the world this year. All these stories (and a poem!) mean the world for me to be able to share with you all. There’s literary, fantasy, science fiction, and pop culture represented—a little something for everyone.

Almost all of these pieces are viewable online but if any nominating readers or editors would like to read my science fiction story “Experiment Ninety-Four” in Collective Realms Magazine*, published Winter 2021 but now out-of-print, I can provide a copy for you if you reach out to me via my Contact page.

Thank you if you consider voting for me, but just as big of thanks if you just take the time to read. More stories will debut in 2022. Meanwhile, I'm busy on two novels (one in its first draft, one in revision). I met my New Year's courage goal of FINALLY submitting a poem (I have five weeks left to sub nonfiction!)

It was a good writing year.

Short Fiction:

  • “A List of Everyone in the World” in Hypertext Magazine’s Winter Issue. A queer, nonbinary love story between a misanthrope and social butterfly.

  • “Experiment Ninety-Four” in Collective Realms Magazine*, January/February 2021. A science fiction short story featuring a boy alone on a space station, who yearns to escape and find his own path in life.

  • “Stitched’ in The Future Fire, July 2021. A feminist re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood for people who typically hate both that particular story and fairytale retellings in general. A queer and neurodivergent myth, it’s an exploration of an outcast driven to confront her own untamed nature. You can read Charles Payseur’s (Quick Sips Review) praise for the story here.

Poetry:

Art:

  • “Dawn Treader Station” in Collective Realms Magazine’s January/February 2021 issue.*

  • “Cara” and “Tethered” in The Future Fire’s July 2021 issue. You can read about the art, especially one of the pieces being an homage to beloved illustrator Trina Schart Hyman, here.

  • The entirety of the online issue for Hypertext Magazine’s Winter 2020/2021 issue, including three pieces which were nominated by the editors for a Best of the Net award in Art.

*Collective Realms shut down in June 2021 and the EIC took the site offline. The story is currently off on submission for a reprint market, but you can read the PDF here until then.

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New Art and A Story in the July Issue of The Future Fire

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a woman in blue looks through a mirror, but her reflected image is a wolf, not herself.

(Adapted from two posts originally published on my Patreon.)

I have new art pieces that are up with a brand new story of mine. The illustrations and my latest story, "Stitched", is in the July issue of The Future Fire. You can read it at the link, or as an ebook available on their site. 

Thanks to Djibril al-Ayad for publishing this story, and for commissioning two pieces of art to accompany it. I'll be doing a post this week about the art, but for now, I hope you all enjoy this story!

art of a woman drawn in a fairy tale style, her red cloak blowing in the wind

About the Art:

They commissioned two pieces from me. The image you see here is a personal one. One of my favorite illustrators is an artist named Trina Schart Hyman. I used to hunt for her books when I was a kid. I didn't know why I gravitated towards her books, but something about the style enchanted me. Her images are the bottom right two, mine is on the top and the bottom left. 

When I do commissions for artwork for an author or poet for website design, I often ask my clients to send me artwork that inspires them and then we choose a direction together for the artwork. I wanted to do something similar for myself: do one piece in my style (which is below) and the other as an homage to an influence of mine. 


New Story: "Experiment Ninety-Four" in Collective Realms Magazine

“Welcome to Dawn Treader Station” - by Sarah Salcedo, first published in Collective Realms Magazine #006

“Welcome to Dawn Treader Station” - by Sarah Salcedo, first published in Collective Realms Magazine #006

My latest story is out today in Collective Realms Magazine along with artwork I created. UPDATE: The editor-in-chief of the magazine shut down the website without warning in June. There is no online home for the story just now.

This is the first story that I’ve had published from my Fairy Tale Prodigal Project (more about that later). I wrote the first few lines to it in December 2016, “Once upon a time, in a decommissioned space station orbiting a nebula in a remote quadrant of space, there lived a boy named Caspian. He lived alone and unloved, with nothing and no one but new stars to talk to as his station spun through the dark of space. In his heart, Caspian burned as bright as the lights within the nebula. He was an answer to a problem no one had asked him to solve, and his loneliness was a problem with no answer.”

I wouldn’t write the rest of the story until 2018. I knew the beginning, the heart of the story, but I didn’t know the plot. The character roamed the halls of my subconscious for the next year and half before I had a breakthrough, and the story was revised well into 2019. A little less than two years and nineteen rejections later, Caspian is finally ready for the world.

This is story about loneliness, the power of stories to create meaning and purpose, and the strain that parental agendas put on children. Most of all, it’s a story about hope despite darkness. All my stories are, in one way or another.

Thank you to my husband Vasant for reading every draft and being unflaggingly supportive over the last three years. No one in the world supports my writing like Vasant does and it’s a blessing that he isn’t driven crazy by me hovering over him as he reads asking him what part he’s on now over and over and over.

Thanks to Ken Workman for reading this with an engineer’s eye for language that I used to describe certain elements of the story, and to my sister Claire for reading and editing the earliest drafts of this. Thank you to all the other friends and family who read it and begged to get it out there. Caspian is one of my most beloved characters yet and when the publishing road was difficult (one top tier magazine held it on their editorial board’s desk for 322 days before kindly passing with a request to see more from me), it was the fact that my friends and family loved Caspian like I did that convinced me not to be broken by the rejections but to push on.

I hope you enjoy this story.

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Illustrations and Short Story in Hypertext Magazine

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My commissioned illustration to accompany my short story, “A List of Everyone in the World”

My commissioned illustration to accompany my short story, “A List of Everyone in the World”

A few months ago, I got some wonderful news. A short story I had submitted to Hypertext Magazine, “A List of Everyone in the World”, was accepted for publication in their Fall 2020 issue. The editors also nominated my story for the Best American Short Stories 2020 anthology.

I was so excited by this. I love this story of a misanthropic girl swept off her feet by a person and having to challenge her own fears of opening up in order to give her heart a chance to grow. And as happy as I was that it found a home with Hypertext, I was completely blown away that the editors gave it the anthology nomination.

You can read it here.

But another opportunity popped up from this interaction with Hypertext beyond the literary. When I was communicating with the editors on the final copy of the story, I offered to draw something to accompany my story. I figured, why not? I sent the editors my art portfolio. The worst they could say was no.

Christine Maul Rice, the editor-in-chief of Hypertext Magazine got back to me a week later. She asked if I could do more than an illustration for my story; she asked if I could create a new illustrated masthead for their site and draw a custom spot illustration for each piece in their December 2020 issue.

Chris and I worked closely over the last two months on the masthead and she gave me prompts on every piece featured in the magazine with the exception of my own story. I had so much fun working on these pieces and I’m incredibly proud that my story is appearing both online and in print with Hypertext with this art, and I was so excited to create art for the other amazing writers in this issue.

Below is a collection of the images, but I encourage you to go to Hypertext and read all the fantastic stories and essays that these were created to accompany.