2025 was a year of two halves. I devoted the first half to producing All the Broken Blades and promoting it. In the second half, I focused on completing the second draft of my novel. As a result, new short stories and poems took a back seat. But I do have a few things to present for award consideration.
All the Broken Blades – Best Related Work/Collection/Anthology
All the Broken Blades sits in an awkward spot of being a single-author short story/poetry collection featuring mostly previously published works. But it is eligible for award categories related to collections, anthologies, and related works of speculative fiction, such as:
“The Laughing Knight and the King of Ink: A Tragicomedy in 2.5 Acts” – Best Short Story
This short story appeared for the first time in All the Broken Blades in 2025. Therefore, it is eligible for Best Short Story categories in all the above-listed awards, plus the Hugo Awards and the Nebula Awards.
2026 Writer Bingo
In hopes of keeping myself focused and productive, I have created a Bingo sheet for 2026 goals. I’ve tried many things over the years to fix my (very poor) ability to focus, from daily schedules to productivity planners, and I must report: they all failed. Maybe this will be the one that works?
One key feature of the Bingo is, I’ve only included items within my control. These things are centred around my own output: the words I write, the queries/submissions I send, the events I attend. I have not included things like “publish X number of stories” or “sign with an agent” because these are things outside my direct control. As a poster hanging over a lunchroom sink once told me, “Today I will not stress over things I can’t control.”
“Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka” won Best Poem/Song
“Blood and Desert Dreams” won Best Short Story
Huge thanks to the editors who published me over the years, the writing groups who asserted positive peer pressure, and the friends who believed in me even when I was thoroughly sick of my own writing.
You can watch a replay of the livestream here. My speeches are at 59:25 and 1:09:51. Warning: I used up my good jokes the first time around.
“Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka” – Winner of Best Poem/Song
Yes, there’s a physical award with my name on it! This is the Best Poem/Song award for “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka.”
I’ve threatened to write a Cthulhu takoyaki story for years. When I learned that Cthulhu was basically a giant octopus, my first thought was, “Ah, food!” Maybe, depending on where he washes ashore, people may not gaze upon him with awe or fear, or even with scientific reverence. They may well witness the one-and-only eldritch god (an endangered species if there ever was one) and decide he makes a good meal.
Takoyaki–fried octopus balls–is a Japanese street food that originated in Osaka. It’s enjoyed all over the world now, though name is bit misleading–most of the snack is the batter, with only a tiny tendril of octopus tentacle inside.
So why not turn a horrifying and unknowable deity into a snack ingredient, basically the side dish of a side dish? Thus was the birth of “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka.”
I wrote this poem in a single day as part of Toronto Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ annual one-shot anthology series (participants must write their pieces within the span of 24 hours, and the works are compiled in a book after). The editing mostly consisted of debating someone about the exact pH of stomach acid.
This one-shot writing challenge has spawned many of my works over the years; some stories I initially drafted during the challenge but choose not to include them in the one-shot anthologies, instead editing them past the 24-hour period and publishing the works elsewhere.
“Blood and Desert Dreams” – Winner of Best Short Story
And here is the Best Short Story award for “Blood and Desert Dreams.” To my surprise, both awards came with the announcement envelope–I didn’t realize I’d be the one to keep those!
Speaking of which, “Blood and Desert Dreams” was originally drafted during a one-shot writing challenge. I did get the story done in a day, but soon after I received an invitation from a previous editor to submit to his magazine.
I opted to not include “Blood and Desert Dreams” in the Legacy one-shot anthology, thinking it might be a good fit for the magazine that published me before. Alas, after heavy consideration, the editor… didn’t end up buying my story.
But Scott H. Andrews at Beneath Ceaseless Skies did! We worked through multiple rounds of editing to create the version before you today, which is quite different from what I had the night of the one-shot anthology. “Blood and Desert Dreams” was once even more ambiguous, if you can believe that. Scott respected my vision of the unreliable narrator and “unique” ending (trying to not spoil anything), but he found ways to make the concept clearer. I did not want to mould the ending into a singular entity that it wasn’t, but Scott’s ideas preserved my vision while also making it palatable.
When award and “year’s best” compilation season hit, I experienced mixed feelings. “Blood and Desert Dreams” was my favourite among the three stories I published last year, but should I really ask people to consider it for year’s best anthologies or awards? It is ambitious, sure, and very representative of my writing. But I kept having flashbacks to early reader and editor feedback, about how difficult it was to understand. Had Scott’s edits been enough to broaden the appeal? Could there even be a broad appeal to a story with “that” ending?
The Aurora Awards in their natural habitat, or so I pretend. Truth is, this isn’t even my house and I’m still figuring out where to display them…
What’s next? I’m still hard at work on my dark fantasy novel. Day job is still running interference (don’t get me wrong–I love my day job; it just consumes a lot of my time). I’ll be attending Word on the Street (Toronto) and Can*Con (Ottawa). And at some point, I will turn my gaze to that second short story collection, because the science fiction and urban fantasy also deserve their forever homes.
In the meantime: stay hydrated, watch this space for announcements, and don’t forget to devour all your cosmic horrors!
In a first for this blog, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a guest: science fiction writer Don Miasek. Don’s debut novel Pale Grey Dot is on the ballot for Best Novel at the Aurora Awards for Canadian science fiction and fantasy, and I’m very curious about what he has to say regarding the awards and his novel.
Quite nice! Technically this is my second time—Strange Wars was on the Best Related Work ballot back in 2023, but that was for editing an anthology, so any recognition there is just me stealing from the authors.
As for Pale Grey Dot, I am quite proud it’s being recognized. It’s my baby, and a lot of hard work went into it. It’s also a testament to the help I’ve had from my editors and beta readers.
Book cover of Strange Wars, a speculative fiction anthology edited by Don Miasek.
The main thing that struck me about Pale Grey Dot is the focus on character and found family relationships—not necessarily what the science fiction genre is famous for. Is there a reason you opted to write a more character-driven science fiction story?
I’m always baffled by sci-fi not being character driven. Ok, sure, the sci-fi concepts are going to be front-and-centre, but why not both?
I want the reader to fall in love with the characters just as much as the sci-fi world. Their relationship drives the story. If they didn’t love each other so much, all motivation is gone.
I also wanted contrast between the characters. Jenna is the vicious rebel, Ezza is the prim-and-proper authority figure, and Cherny is somewhere in the middle. I fixated on the idea of them suffering the same setback—being fired after a mission gone horribly wrong—and each reacting to it in entirely different ways. Who is at fault for the disastrous Martian Insurrection? Ezza, Cherny, and Jenna offer opposing viewpoints.
I’m also a fan of taking different characters, making them all likeable, and then pitting them against one another. Each have good reasons for doing what they do. They’re justified in their own mind. This creates a wonderful nuance, where you learn what each character values. It also helps to drive up tension, since you know they can’t all win.
People often talk about “hard” science fiction vs. “soft” science fiction. Where would you say Pale Grey Dot falls on the scale?
Sci-fi hardness tends to fall in two categories: 1. Things people already know, and therefore only requires the author to adhere to it 2. Science that only 1% of the population will understand, and is therefore indistinguishable from being made up nonsense
For example, everyone knows there is no weight in space. If you have Kirk walk across the bridge with artificial gravity, you know that isn’t realistic. It’s a stylistic choice by Gene Roddenberry. For Pale Grey Dot, I decided to obey physics. That means characters float in their spaceships, need to clip themselves into railings to hold still, and can only walk when the ship is rotating. I did not have to explain to the reader how gravity works. I only needed to make it clear that I was going to be realistic about it.
On the other hand, ships in the Pale Grey Dot universe use nuclear pulse engines. This is a real theoretical method of propulsion, but I could have picked an ion drive, or impulse engines, or a transfusic flux phase-capacitor actuator. Nothing in the book would have changed if I went with gobbledygook, and the reader doesn’t need to know how it works. It’s the engine. It makes the ship go! Lesson complete.
Pale Grey Dot is hard on #1, but as I like to say, it’s “Accessibly Hard Science Fiction”.
Among the three point-of-view characters—Cherny, Ezza, and Jenna—do you have a personal favourite? Who was the most fun to write, the most difficult to write, and/or the most relatable for you?
I love all my characters!
That said, Jenna was the most fun to write. As mentioned above, I wanted a contrast between the characters, and Jenna is the one who finds herself in dilapidated cyberpunk slums, cheap motel rooms with mould growing on the walls, and broken down spaceships. She’s desperate, she’s hungry, she’s pissed, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to win. I could write that all day long!
Ezza, on the other hand, spends most of her time in civilization. Her warship, Starknight, is well run. It’s clean, it’s efficient, and the crew are capable. She can also be counted on to do the right thing. This is great since it highlights Jenna’s desperation, but it risks making Ezza boring. I had to work extra hard to make the environments and setpieces interesting, and to ensure she wai properly challenged. I gotta make my characters suffer, and because Ezza is so damn competent, I needed to REALLY make her suffer.
Cherny, as usual, was somewhere in between. He spends some time in the slums, and some time in civilization. The big draw of writing him was that he’s the one who has a tough decision to make. Jenna ain’t going to join the Earth Security Service. Ezza is also going to resist it. But my boy Cherny? He’s truly, genuinely tempted. I wanted the reader to see the upside of joining, both for Cherny personally, and also for the solar system as a whole. What will he choose? Gotta read to find out!
Don signing books at his launch party. He wrote a retrospective about the experience on his blog for the one-year anniversary of Pale Grey Dot.
Another theme in Pale Grey Dot is conflicting loyalties: lingering loyalty to Her (whether real or artificial) vs. loyalty to the other Athena Six vs. consideration for the rest of the Solar System. How do the three main characters differ in terms of where their loyalties lie?
This goes back to making your characters suffer. That isn’t just physical suffering, but emotional as well. An easy way to do that is to give ‘em a dilemma—a situation where they must choose between two things they desire. Does Cherny want to stay with Her and live the wonderful life of an operative? Or does he want to rejoin his fellow Athena Sixers? Naturally, he tries to have both, but the story punishes him for his wishy-washiness. Sorry, Cherny, you must pick one or the other. No matter what, someone will be hurt by your decision.
Even Jenna and Ezza, who are a bit more consistent in their loyalties, have to make tough calls. Is Jenna willing to hurt innocents in her quest for vengeance? Is Ezza willing to dive back into the murky waters of the Earth Security Service, even if it puts her beloved United Fleet at risk?
The concept of Her (Karla) is fascinating, with how huge an impact She has despite minimal physical presence on the page. Could you describe how you conceptualized Her, and whether there were any changes in different drafts of the book?
I think She might be my biggest success. Even deciding to capitalize Her was a risk that easily could have backfired. Would the reader ever get confused between Her and any ol’ her? Would the reader wonder how the characters know someone is talking about Her when it’s in dialog? I had to be extremely careful to ensure it all worked. Heck, I wrote “I think” at the beginning of this answer strictly so She would appear in the middle of the sentence, and therefore the capitalization would stand out.
Beyond grammar, I had a lot of fun with Her personality. She’s a character of contradictions. She emotionally abuses her ‘children’, yet she’s willing to go out on a limb to protect them. She fights tooth and nail to keep them safe, yet She’ll discard them if need be. Does She truly love Her agents? Does She want what’s best for them? Jenna, Cherny, and Ezza have totally opposing opinions on this, and I want the reader to make up their own.
In addition, She was a great hook. A driving question I wanted in the reader’s head was just what was Her nature. Is she human? An AI? A whole team of people? Gotta keep reading to find out!
To my happy surprise, She exceeded my wildest dreams.
What’s next for you? Will we be seeing more stories in this universe?
There actually already is another story in the Pale Grey Universe. “For the Flesh and the Machine” was published in Polar Borealis back in December 2021, years before Pale Grey Dot hit the shelves. So if you’re interested in a little Jenna story before the events of the main book, check it out.
To answer your question about the future, stay tuned. The Pale Grey story has only just begun…
Note from Y.M. Pang: The deadline to register to vote for the Aurora Awards is fast approaching! If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident: you can become a voting member for the bargain price of $10. This gives you access to all the nominated works, including 10 novels (featuring Don’s novel Pale Grey Dot), 5 short stories (featuring my story “Blood and Desert Dreams”), 5 novelettes/novellas, and 5 poems (featuring my poem “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka”).
Both these pieces are available to read online for free (just follow the links above).
If you are a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant: it’s not too late to grab your membership. Cost is just $10, and grants you access to a voters’ package containing all the nominated works—including five novels in the Best Novel category (don’t miss out this chance to read Pale Grey Dot by my colleague and friend Don Miasek—a truly excellent science fiction novel that blends classic starship fights with surprising character complexity).
July 12 – Membership payments close, voters’ package download closes
July 19 – Aurora Awards voting closes
August 9 – Aurora Awards ceremony (online)
It’s a huge honour to be able to call myself a four-time Aurora Award finalist. Whether I win or not, I’m glad that these awards exist to bring awareness to Canadian science fiction and fantasy. And hey, four-time Aurora Award loser at least sounds hilarious, and I don’t let anything get in the way of a good laugh.
All the Broken Blades – Book Launch
The book launch for All the Broken Blades occurred on June 8, 2025 at the Imperial Pub. I had a full house (yay!), a wonderful host in Peter G. Reynolds, give-aways, a special oral storytelling version of “Glass Gardens,” and a trivia session where people fought over broken and unbroken swords.
If you’ve had a chance to read All the Broken Blades: an honest review on Goodreads, Amazon, Indigo, and/or your platform of choice would be appreciated!
This poem originally appeared in Invitation: A One-shot Anthology of Speculative Fiction. It was subsequently nominated in the 2025 Aurora Awards for Best Poem/Song. I am making it available online so that everyone can enjoy. Bon appétit!
Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka
The Eldritch God drifts in coastal waters, stretching barnacled tentacles toward a beach of white-gold sand. Through galaxies and black holes he’d been called; Cthulhu goes only where invited.
Once he had been invoked by absolute despair, by abnormal horror, by the terror and ravenous imagination of a feeble man. This time (he sensed) the call smelled different, tasted different.
That great gelatinous head rose from the waves and released the wordless song that had devoured comets, devoured stars, sent wizened poets to despair. Upon the nascent stones of the beach he spread his multitude limbs, the squish of grasping suckers.
He awaits for the despairing to fall to their knees to claw off oily clumps of hair and bloodied bits of scalp, to scream. Scream they do, if little else. The Eldritch God knows every tongue so he understands when they say, “Incredible! Magnificent! Such size!”
One steps closer, lifting an iron butcher’s cleaver. “Perfect!”
Sunlight on a heavy blade, quick swing, clean cut. The Eldritch God does not bleed.
Slurp. One sucker tugged into the man’s mouth, sucked down his gullet screaming all the way— because Cthulhu feels even when severed. Until tentacle flesh loses a battle to stomach acid (pH approaching 1.5).
The man nods approval, hacks off more flesh —an entire segment of tentacle— and stumbles from the weight of his prize. The Eldritch God scrabbles, grabs, misses. Cthulhu cannot go further, uninvited and unfeared. Even gods become beached, become grounded.
The man vanishes, returns with balls of battered wheat flour that he feeds a scraggy companion. “See, what did I say? Octopus over marinated meat!”
From his words spawn a storm of knives and nets, of carving and arguing, of sundered god-flesh and ineffectual echoes of cosmic terror.
The Eldritch God is partitioned, divided, devoured, some parts frozen and stored for later use. He chants spectral litanies which fall upon deaf ears, cotton-balled already with more Elder(ly) Gods or perhaps only culinary obsession.
Sometimes Cthulhu awakens in pH approaching 1.5, reaches delicate feelers to a receptive mind, induces a sweet moment of madness, and dreams of the stars. But mostly, the God slumbers in lakes of acid, in cellars beneath the ice, in a street vendor’s magnum opus, in little corners of history where eldritch songs are welcome and powerless.
It’s that time of year again. No, not talking about Christmas (though, early Merry Christmas to those who celebrate). It’s award eligibility season!
In 2024, I published three short stories and will have one poem forthcoming in the tail end of the year:
“Blood and Desert Dreams” (short story) in Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Kahna’s blood is poison, fatal to anyone who touches just one drop. Raised in the household of the ambitious Lady Darya, Kahna is trained as an assassin, using her unique power to eliminate Lady Darya’s enemies. Kahna is more than willing to anything for Lady Darya, but as the weight of her crimes pile up, Kahna’s world—and mind—begin to fracture. Read online.
“The Last Fugu House of Shimonoseki” (short story) in F(r)iction: Ayami is Shimonoseki’s last fugu chef. In a world where virtual reality has taken over, real life experiences—from natural wonders to historical architecture to fine dining—have become obsolete. Now, on the closing day of Sushi Maekawa, Ayami must make her final meals of deadly pufferfish and figure out what is next for her life and career. Read online.
“House of Jade Lions” (short story) in Other: the 2024 speculative fiction anthology: A noble family is trapped in a nightmarish house by (maybe) the decorative jade lions hanging from the ceilings. In the House of Jade Lions, Eldest Sister dangles from the balcony, Mother kills Father every evening, and the narrator is shrinking into a doll. The narrator reflects on all that led them here, including Mother’s ambition and his own wish for the family to stay unchanging forever. Get the book.
“Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka” (poem) in Invitation: A One-Shot Anthology of Speculative Fiction: This one’s not out yet, but TDotSpec is endeavouring to have the anthology out before end of the year. I will update the post with the link to the anthology as soon as it’s released. As for the contents… well, the title is self-explanatory. (EDIT: Invitation was released December 29, 2024. Get the book: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca)
Awards and How to Support
Some awards I am eligible for:
The Hugo Awards: Nominations will open in early 2025. To nominate, a person would need to purchase a membership to the World Science Fiction Society before January 31, 2025, or to have been a member during Glasgow Worldcon in 2024. After nominations close, voting will be open to all members of Seattle Worldcon in 2025. My short stories are eligible for the Best Short Story category, and my poem will be eligible for Best Poem—a special category in the 2025 Seattle Worldcon.
The Nebula Awards: Full, Associate, and Senior Members of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) can nominate and vote for the Nebula Awards. My short stories are eligible for the Short Story category.
The Aurora Awards: Award for the best Canadian science fiction and fantasy of the year. Members of the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association are allowed to nominate and vote. My short stories are eligible for the Best Short Story category, and my poem will be eligible for Best Poem/Song.
What you can do to support:
If you would like to participate in the Hugo Awards: Become a member of the World Science Fiction Society. You don’t need to attend Worldcon to be a member; basic membership grants you the right to nominate if purchased before end of January 2025, and the right to vote.
If you are Canadian: Become a member of the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association to nominate and vote. As a side note, membership gets you access to digital copies of the works on the shortlists, so think of it as getting an ultra-affordable ebook package.
2024 in Review
2024 has been a year of novelty and reconnection. I ventured into things I hadn’t done before, or resumed activities I’d let fall by the wayside. These include:
Ran a successful Kickstarter for my fantasy short story collection, All the Broken Blades
Reunited with my love for photography and photo-editing
Began updating this blog again regularly
It’s been an adventurous year. Next year, hopefully, will bring even bigger and better things. In the meantime, I will continue working on proofreading and book creation for All the Broken Blades.
Nothing like good ol’ paper. Alternate heading: I have 2 seconds before The Razor’s Edge falls over. 0.5 seconds before F&SF follows suit.
2018 was a dreamily wonderful year for me in terms of publication. So dreamy, in fact, that I’m apparently still asleep. Hence why I’m writing this now when everyone else has made their award eligibility posts a month ago.
But nominations are still open for the major SF/F awards. So I’ve listed my 2018 publications below, aided by attempts at pithy, funny summaries. Attempts, I say, because this might get long and not so pithy. If brevity is the soul of wit, then I have none of it. Sorry, Shakes.
Some of the awards I’m eligible for include:
The Hugo Awards: Nominations are open until March 16 at 11:59 Pacific Daylight Time. Nominating can be done by current Worldcon members, members of last year’s Worldcon, or members of next year’s Worldcon.
The Nebula Awards: Nominations are open until February 15 for Active and Associate members of SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America).
The Aurora Awards: For the best Canadian SF/F of the year. Nominations are open from March 1 to May 21. Members of the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association are allowed to nominate and vote.
I’m also in my first year of eligibility for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. It is not technically a Hugo, but it follows the same nomination and voting process. Nominations are open until March 15 at 11:59 Pacific Daylight Time.
And here are the individual stories I’ve published this year, and what they are eligible for. Stories marked with a * are available to read for free.
Eligible for Best Short Story (Hugo Awards and Nebula Awards):
*“The Mooncakes of My Childhood” (330 words) in PodCastle. A short piece on the rock-hard, northern version of mooncakes, and how they could be weaponized.
“A Place Without Seasons” (1,370 words) in Factor Four Magazine. Sentient snowbunnies can stick around after winter rather than going the way of Frosty the Snowman… if you stick them in the freezer, of course.
*“Subtle Ways Each Time” (2,100 words) in Escape Pod. A man loses a woman, and decides time travel is the solution. He might be wrong.
*“Glass Heart Giant” (3,850 words) in Sanctuary. What if you were trapped inside someone’s literal heart? Written in a day.
Eligible for Best Novelette (Hugo Awards and Nebula Awards):
*“The Palace of the Silver Dragon” (7,820 words) in Strange Horizons. No one who hears the Silver Dragon’s song and jumps into the sea ever returns alive. Aliah knows this, as she takes the leap.
*“The Girl with the Frozen Heart” (8,300 words) in Awakenings from Book Smugglers Publishing. The story of a dying girl, a god who tries to save her, and a boy who falls in love with her.
“The Lady of Butterflies” (8,970 words) in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A foreign girl with no memories appears in the Kejalin court, and the First Sword of the Empire is forced to be her caretaker.
All the above stories are also eligible for the Aurora Award for Best Short Fiction.
I’ve also published two poems, which are eligible for the Rhysling Award (nominations by members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association) and the Aurora Award for Best Poem or Song.
*“Death’s Knotted Circle” in Polar Borealis #8. Iambic pentametre published in 2018. About as gloomy as the title suggests.
Concluding Thoughts: I’m quite proud of the amount of stories I’ve published this year. Less proud of my inability to blog consistently, and to write my detailed thoughts about every story (as I’ve promised).
I’m still in the wide-eyed honeymoon phase of publishing, so I read reviews. They have been quite positive and even heartwarming (I am writing that down here, so that one day, buried beneath scathing reviews, I can look back and laugh at myself. That’s when I’ll know I’ll have become a “real writer”). “The Lady of Butterflies” and “The Palace of the Silver Dragon,” in particular, have garnered a number of positive reviews (which I, of course, retweeted gleefully). Those two happen to be my personal favourites as well. “The Lady of Butterflies” is more classic secondary-world fantasy, and I planned it out scene by scene, while “The Palace of the Silver Dragon” is darker and I myself took half the story to figure out the main character’s actual deal.
For anyone who read anything I published this year, I would love to hear your thoughts below, positive or negative.
Current Projects: I have two stories and a poem forthcoming in 2019. One will be in Clarkesworld, and the other two I cannot announce yet.
I am also slogging through the third act of a fantasy time travel novel set in the same world as “The Lady of Butterflies.” I’ve finally restarted development on a visual novel I wrote three years ago; I thought I was done the writing part, but apparently three-year-old prose is kinda yucky, who would’ve thought? I am still working on short stories, though more in terms of editing existing ones rather than writing new ones. For now, at least.
This was supposed to be an awards eligibility post. It seems to have veered off-track. Attempt #8923476 at being pithy. Result: not achieved.
