Works

Short Stories

Currently, this listing only includes stories that are still readily available to read somewhere. I may add older, out-of-print work

• After School Program – read online
  My contribution to the multimedia shared world anthology Welcome to Los Suelos. When you use latchkey kids as a captive test audience for movies you want to screen at your cult’s drive-in movie theater, the results are gonna be what they’re gonna be.
• An American Vampire in Amsterdam – forthcoming
  A timid vampire from Chicago goes on vacation in The Netherlands, a country whose famously tolerant attitudes toward vampires extend to having public dispensaries that sell ethically-sourced human blood. Once there, he finds that all his Dutch contacts are morbidly obsessed with the Gross Consumption, an urban legend about a ritual for consuming an entire human body, bones and all. Forthcoming in Speculative City.
• Apartémon – read online
  While you’re out walking your dog one day, a mysterious AR game is downloaded to your phone. The game prevents you from using any other apps and can’t be uninstalled. Your exchanges with their customer service chatbot grow increasingly uncanny, and you find yourself less and less willing to leave your apartment at all. Published in The Dread Machine.
• The Apology – buy magazine
  My contribution to the disabled and neurodivergent people’s special issue of Shoreline of Infinity. In the near future, corporate CEOs’ public apologies for the human rights atrocities they regularly commit have become spectator events, complete with sports-style commentary and drinking games. Combine this with equally cringe-worthy morning talk radio and spousal arguments during 100-mile work commutes, and you get a very uncomfortable story indeed. This was one of the stories in my Clarion application packet.
• As I Wait for the Killing Blow – read – listen
  After the birth of her granddaughter, an old woman begins transforming into a monster. When her granddaughter comes of age, tradition dictates that she will venture into the wilderness to slay her ancestor as a rite of passage into adulthood, or die in the attempt. Originally published by Fireside Fiction (RIP), podcast version produced by Cast of Wonders alongside “Interlude” by Christopher Hawkins.
• The Cure for Loneliness – read – buy Japanese language version
  A young woman deals with pandemic isolation (and incessant self-pitying texts from her horrible ex) by cultivating relationships with her dead cat’s taxidermy and the uncanny house plants growing in her apartment, seemingly able to feed on anything. Originally published in Apex Magazine along with an author interview, with a Japanese translation later published in S-F Magazine.
• The Gnome – read online
  A couple set out a trap for raccoons, and catch a gnome instead. The husband, Todd, begins to worry that his wife, Jean, is growing more attached to gnome than she is to him. This was the second story included in my Clarion application packet, subsequently published in Sinking City.
• Go with the Flow
  An on-the-job injury resulted in the loss of your arm. Several months later, you return to work sporting an experimental bionic replacement. You find the bionic’s presence on your body disconcerting; all the more so when your client, a married woman, starts trying to initiate an affair with you… or possibly just with the arm. Currently, this story is only readable in my collection All Your Friends Are Here, linked above.
• Man vs. Bomb – read online
  Deer have taken over the world, and have built up a lively industry around capturing fugitive humans and forcing them to compete in gruesome blood sport for their entertainment. There’s also a zombie apocalypse going on, but it only affects humans, so no one really cares. Published in a previous incarnation of Fantasy Magazine; happily, the current publisher, Psychopomp Press, still maintains the archives.
• A Method for Propagation of the Household Staff – read online
  A “found document” story. A recipe in an occult newspaper from the nineteenth century details a shockingly inhumane method of conjuring reanimated servants, “written” by Lucille Edith Kilbeggan and “annotated” by M. Shaw. Published in Sci-Phi Journal.
• The Motorist
  One of my personal reading kinks is that I have a major soft spot for tender portrayals of platonic male intimacy. This is one of those, mixed with a heavy dose of creeping dread. The residents of an apartment complex notice that Bob, one of their neighbors, never seems to set foot outside his car anymore. Bruce, who just wants to autoerotically cross-dress in peace, finds himself befriending and defending Bob as another neighbor pursues an obsessive vendetta against him. Currently, this story can only be read in my collection All Your Friends Are Here, linked above.
• My Dad Bought a Space Shuttle – buy anthology
  A sequence of slice-of-life vignettes about being a trans teen with a shitty dad who worships billionaires and is obsessed with status symbols. Originally published in Voyage YA, which sadly no longer maintains their archives. However, you can still read the story in We’re Here: the Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2022, published by neon hemlock.
• My Father Was a Beastly Tyrant, and His Father Before Him – read online
  One of my rare flash fiction stories, in a “found document” style. A letter written by a prince to his common-born lover as revolutionaries storm the palace. Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
• Objects at Rest – download pdf
  A young woman tries to navigate a life without attachments, post-college and after the deaths of both her parents. During a waitressing shift at the generic suburban fast-casual restaurant where she works, she finds herself saddled with a customer who refuses, for hours, to make up his mind about what to order. Things go off the rails even further when he becomes obsessed with a morbid souvenir possessed by one of the cooks. Published in Valparaiso Fiction Review.
• One Long Staircase, Just Going Up – buy anthology
  The 500 Richest Earth Men are contacted by an alien syndicate with a tantalizing offer: sign over the fate of the Earth to us, and you can live in carefree luxury with no demands for the rest of time. Published in Cosmic Contact: First Contact Stories from Culture Cult Press.
• The Only Friend You Ever Need
  A nervous, obsessive man attempts to come to terms with the fact that a homicidal demon has decided she’s his best friend, and appears willing to follow him anywhere and kill anyone (or anything) who comes between them. Originally published in Crossed Genres (RIP), whose online archives unfortunately seem to have finally bit the dust. You can still read the story in my collection All Your Friends Are Here, linked above.
• Ready Player (n+1)
  A finalist for the 2025 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette. In the future, a mega-billionaire dies and promises a billion-dollar share of his estate to anyone who can solve a series of nostalgia-focused puzzles within a MMO game commissioned in his honor. “That’s how you get to be a mega-billionaire, you know: generosity. Makes total sense, not suspicious at all.” Applequack, one of a handful of players to claim a slice of the pie despite the estate’s best efforts to prevent trans people from even playing the game at all, spills the tea on all the darkest secrets of her experience in a random dive bar, to whoever happens to be there. Currently, you can only read this story in my collection All Your Friends Are Here, linked above.
• Roots in the Ground – buy magazine
  A search party sweeping a mountain for a missing hiker stumbles upon a cult in the middle of an “orgy” of humans copulating with… trees. The cultists’ (and, increasingly, the search party’s) bizarre behavior reminds one man more and more of his daughter’s childhood imaginary friend, who surfaced in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Published in Cosmic Horror Monthly.