Quick Sips - PodCastle #616 & 620

It's a fairly full month of stories at PodCastle, with a special double release pushing the total stories to three. They aren't exactly the cheeriest of tales, dealing with grief, transformation, loneliness, and death. But the stories hold some tenderness and hope in their hearts, managing to navigate through or around the crush of emotions, the gravity of loss, and steer toward a place where maybe healing can begin. Where maybe the characters can shift the narrative away from tragedy and to a more affirming place. To the reviews!

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2019! The "There's Something in My Eye" Sippy for Excellent Making Me Ugly-Cry in Short SFF

The 5th Annual Sippy Awards show no signs of slowing as we move past horror and settle into a whole new emotional destination. That's right, people, it's time to bust out the tissues, because this category is taking aim directly at your feels! I might be something of an emotive reader, but I feel that comes with trying to approach fiction openly and engage with it deeply. I tend to let stories in to where they can hurt the most, because while that can often backfire and leave me hurt and angry, it can also lead me to some amazing emotional connections with stories, which I'm honoring with the...

“There’s Something in My Eye” Sippy Award 

for Excellent Making Me Ugly-Cry in Short SFF

Following horror with this category makes a lot of sense to me, because for me both are about evoking emotions. With horror, that emotion is fear. With these stories, it's probably a bit more about...pain. Which might seem a strange thing to value in fiction. But it's not that the stories are about making the reader feel sad. There are plenty of ways that people seek out pain. Through exercise, through sport, through food--pain is about more than telling person that they've taken damage. It's a powerful experience, one of the most primal things, and a story that can hurt in the best of ways is rare and precious. Because it allows people to experience in a controlled way something they'd probably never want to experience in their own lives. It gives perspective, and it mingles pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, despair and burning hope. It takes a great deal of care, and requires a bit of trust, but these stories I feel earn it and then some.

Publication wise, it's another rather eclectic mix, though Strange Horizons does appear twice. Really that's no surprise for me, as the publication really does a great job at reducing me to a small puddle of tears on the regular. What's doubly appreciated is that Strange Horizons offer ample warnings for people who might not want to take the emotional plunge into a work that deals with such heavy themes.

Quick Sips - Anathema #8

Art by Jade Zhang

A new issue of Anathema Magazine brings with it four short stories and two poems, the works mixing despair and joy, trauma and resilience. It starts off with a heavy piece about assault and trust and relationships before segueing into a much more joyful and light read (which nonetheless ends with a devastating force). From there it gets grim once more before closing on a sense of hope and wonder. The issue captures danger and the happiness that live hand in hand for many queer people of color, a living truth that is presented here without apology or hesitation. It’s on the reader to read with the same bravery, finding the beauty and meaning and impact in the works here. To the reviews!

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2018! The "There's Something in My Eye" Sippy for Excellent Making Me Ugly-Cry in Short SFF

The 4th Annual Sippy Awards keeps right on moving! That’s right, the SFF awards that no one asked for and few pay attention to is back! I’ve shipped my favorite relationships, and I’ve cowered in fear before my favorite horror stories. Which means that it’s time to reduce myself to a small puddle of tears somewhat resembling a functioning human being. yes, it’s time for...

The “There’s Something in My Eye” Sippy Award 

for Excellent Making Me Ugly-Cry in Short SFF

I’m something of an emotive reader, which means that there are times when reading that a story just hits me right in the feels and I need to take a moment to recover. These are stories that, for me, are defined most by their emotional weight. By the impact they have, the ability to completely destroy all the careful emotional shields we use to keep the rest of the world at bay. These are the stories that pry open the shell of control I try surround myself in and leave me little more than a blubbering mess. So joining me in smiling through the tears and celebrating this year’s winners!

When it comes to venues, it's once again a rather eclectic mix. I'm so happy to include a Shimmer story here, in part because it was the publication's final year and they've definitely given me a lot of stories over the years that have made me weepy. And there's the second story from Omenana to receive a Sippy, too. Seriously, if anyone is missing this magazine, reconsider. There's so much amazing work. Tor makes its first appearance in the Sippys this year, as does Terraform, two publications that are part of larger publishing bodies that definitely flex their reach to bring in some awesome stories each year. And the winner here is from what was probably my favorite publication of 2018, Strange Horizons (at least, it definitely led the pack with stories that made it to my recommended reading list). So yeah, a diverse bunch. To the awards!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 05/21/2018 & 05/28/2018

The end of May brings one story and two poems to Strange Horizons (as well as a bunch of nonfiction you should check out), and it’s an emotionally resonating bunch of SFF that centers difference, isolation, and joy. Here we find characters who don’t quite fit in, who are able to see something, to feel something, that they’re not really supposed to. For some, this puts them into the realm of monsters, deserving of pain and isolation. For others, it means being able to make lives easier for people, but being limited in how much you can do. For all of them, the point seems to be to reach for a place where they can be fulfilled and happy, even if perhaps that place doesn’t exist yet. It’s a great mix of fiction and poetry, so let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Gabriella Eriksson

Quick Sips - The Dark #27

August brings a pair of rather strange stories to The Dark Magazine, including one that’s much longer than I’m used to from the publication. Both stories look at different kinds of hunger, different ways that the main characters seek to fill up an emptiness inside them. For both characters, the emptiness has something to do with the loss of their mothers when they were quite young. For one, that loss is a trauma that he can’t seem to heal from. For the other, the loss opens up a void that cannot be filled, that is filled with anger and uncertainty. These are stories that do a good job exploring place and grief, the characters trying to find some map to lead them toward peace and fulfillment. How the characters follow those maps, though, is quite different. So let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Tomislav Tikulin

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #104

This is rather a loaded issue of Clarkesworld. With five original stories, two of them translations, it's a bit longer than a normal issue. Plus, the stories themselves aren't by and large short (two of them coming in over 7k). But it's also loaded in the sense that it packs quite the emotional kick. Rare is it that I'm confronted with so many touching stories all in the same issue. So a very good month for the publication, plus a piece of nonfiction that takes an interesting look at the craft of creative writing. Enough talk, though—to the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon