Looking back, 2016 feels like the other side of the galaxy. It’s almost incomprehensible. Almost. It was a different era for the world, a different era for my personal life. I was post graduate school, living in Chicago, working at an encyclopedia in digital products, and preparing to get married in 2017. I was/am incredibly privileged, but I remember, creatively, I was floundering. I’d been told by various teachers and mentors I was a “good writer,” and I held onto that like some sort of weird talisman that a type of success, surely, would happen. Surely a novel would appear, right?
Unfortunately, graduate school had drilled a lot of what I loved about speculative fiction out of me; many teachers frowned upon genre, or they didn’t really know how to critique it. Many professors favored literary realism. Nothing wrong with literary realism, of course. Some of my favorite writers write literary realism, but I’d always been attracted to genre. I wanted to write weird shit. I’d been published in a few small places, mostly literary, either unpaid or token-payment, and I had promised myself to write a novel eventually, but short stories were (still are) what I loved most.
At that time, I had a draft of a story I deeply loved. A dark fantasy about a marionette, about power and betrayal. Spoiler alert: It’s a bleak story; the heroine does not necessarily triumph in the end. She survives, but at a cost. I’d written the first draft in undergrad. I was going to expand it into a novel in graduate school, but a professor made fun of the draft in my first semester novel workshop; Sexual jokes about Pine Sol. I cried in the bathroom after. I tucked the story away. I tried to forget about it. I almost did.
Almost.
One of the beautiful and annoying joys about writing, about the stories that take root in our minds and psyches, is that they’ll never really go away until they get the attention they deserve. Like feral toddlers, stories are. The right stories will haunt you, possess you like a demon. They won’t let you go.
This story, “The Bells,” haunted me.
“Do right by me,” it whispered. “Try again.”
Incessant. Never-ending.
I kept coming back to the story, tinkering with point of view and pacing. I kept the notes from previous workshops from those who understood what I was trying to go for. I reread it over and over and over again.
Eventually I submitted it to Apex Magazine in March 2016.
In June, I received an acceptance.
I stared at the email in shock. My first pro sale. Holy shit. Good money for my work. Jason asked for my Twitter handle, which I rarely used at the time. Later on, I saw his announcement. There it was. My name. My story. It was real. And look there: a community! This was when Twitter wasn’t yet owned by Musk; it had its garbage fires but my god, I found people who wrote what I wrote, who liked what I liked. It’s unbelievably cliche, but truly I felt like Matilda entering public school for the first time. Books! Teachers! Friends! Only for me it was nerdy goths! Activist horror writers! Queer sci-fi fantasy stans and weird angry women writers. My people.
When the story was published, I discovered the brilliant Maria Haskins, who called my story “devastating.” People read my work! People liked it! Some didn’t, and hey, that’s okay. It was the first story I got to read reviews of. I remember rereading many of them, even ones that didn’t connect with my story. Reading them reminded me that yes, there it was. Yes, the story is out there. I did right by it. I found the perfect home.
In hindsight, “The Bells,” its story of my heroine, Mary, losing the fight again and again, prepared me for bleak moments ahead. The end of 2016 resulted in Trump’s first election, and the president of the encyclopedia I worked at smugly chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump!” down the office aisles the morning after the win. The reeling of Mary matched my own, watching history take form. Eventually I’d leave that encyclopedia. Eventually I’d get married. Eventually I’d give birth to my first child. A galaxy away.
By 2023, I had two children under five, and I looked back on 2016 somewhat wistfully. Before children, I had no idea how much time I had. All the time I could have written more. Come 2023, it felt like there was never enough time in the day. The novel was still “forthcoming.” I clung to my writing, so desperate to keep this creative identity between nap times, meltdowns, and potty training. Having my second child in late 2020 amidst the onset of the pandemic, combined with postpartum anxiety, was a supernova in my head and heart. I was desperate for multitudes. I needed my writing to maintain a sense of self that often felt miles away. I needed sleep. I needed and often asked my loved ones to tell me, “Everything is going to be okay.”
My story “Whisper Songs” sprouted from that desperation, about multiple characters seeking truth, be it about themselves or the world. The story followed three characters: The Mother, The Traveler, and The Sono. The Mother was trying to weather an infant in a climate-apocalyptic world in the near future. The Sono is an employee tasked with collecting birdsong. The Traveler is the Mother’s best friend, seeking truth to where and how that birdsong is collected. It can absolutely be said that the character of the Mother held many reflections of myself. Not all, but many. The Mother was desperate for a solution, however uncanny. Each character was desperate for answers and hope.
I submitted “Whisper Songs” to Apex Magazine in February 2023. It felt apt to send this story to Apex, a magazine that has been with me since the beginning; The story had a dark undertone, similar to “The Bells.” There was also that familiar note of desperation, but “Whisper Songs” had more hope. It also felt right that “Whisper Songs” leaned more science fiction, whereas “The Bells” was dark fantasy. A perfect new addition for Apex.
As I’m sure every writer can attest to in some fashion, each story contains a part of me. For some stories, it’s an emotion, situation, or similar conflict I’ve experienced. For “Whisper Songs,” it contained a pulpy mesh of my postpartum emotions and identity distress. In May 2023, during a doctor appointment, I checked my phone and saw the acceptance email from chief editors Jason and Lesley. I cried in the car. Every acceptance–especially after having kids—brought not only joy but profound relief. I did it. Yet again I found a perfect home. The right story got its due.
I’ve rambled about the right stories finding the right homes but make no mistake: rejection was (is) commonplace. Normal. Rejection, I keep telling myself, is a good sign, however disappointing it may be. It means I haven’t given up. It means I’m in the thick of it. It means the stories continue to haunt me to find the right home. The right editor. The right time.
I’m writing these last paragraphs after taking my kids to the playground, their cheeks apple-red from the heat. My youngest is asking for a snack, and I’ve paused twice to find what she deems is the correct food choice. My eldest wants to climb on my lap. I’ll pause again to snuggle.
In another five or so years, this will feel another galaxy away. Perhaps I’ll have more time and space to write. My writing may reflect another aspect of my life and the world. There’s so much I hope will improve, and I hope I continue to have the strength to fight for it. To hope that my children will have the rights and autonomy to be whoever they want to be and to live in a world that isn’t crumbling around them. In all that, I hope the stories still come. I hope they nudge and pursue. Haunt me to continue. Annoy. Stew and rattle in my heart.
