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.”
Happy new year! 2026 is here, but no doubt I will keep accidentally writing 2025 until at least March.
2025 was the most pivotal year of my writer career so far. So here’s a final send-off (it’s a retroSPECtive, as in speculative fiction, get it? …I’ll see myself out) and a final review of the year.
May 28: Release of All the Broken Blades
My first book! I can finally say, “I’m an author, check out my book!” (versus “I’m an author, please comb the back issues of XYZ magazine”). Following a successful Kickstarter, I released All the Broken Bladeson May 28.
Pesky typos remain even after 23479473928 rounds of editing (shout out to Justin Dill for last minute proofreading)
Everything takes longer than you think
This was my first time independently releasing my work; I previously wrote stories, sold stories, (thankfully) got paid, and someone else handled the rest. Perhaps I will make a post on the one-year anniversary of the book with a step-by-step of how I produced and released All the Broken Blades? Stay tuned.
Reading/storytelling session at the Imperial Pub book launch party.
I also held two launch parties: one at the dearly departed Imperial Pub, and one at North America’s oldest science fiction and fantasy bookstore Bakka-Phoenix. These were followed by a book signing at Indigo Books, Canada’s largest bookstore chain.
August 10: Two-time Aurora Award Winner? Moi?
The Aurora Awards in their boxes.
Third time’s the charm and fourth time’s the double charm? Truly, it was an honour to be nominated again, and in two different categories to boot. Actually winning both was…
Dreamy. Strange. Wonderful and confusing.
I had takoyaki ready for the Best Poem/Song announcement; the poem is called “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka,” so you can guess what happened to poor Cthulhu. By the Best Short Story announcement (in which “Blood and Desert Dreams” won), I was out of ideas for a funny speech and had deteriorated to denying bubble tea shop sponsorship.
September 27-28: Word on the Street! First Literary Festival!
The Toronto Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers booth at Word on the Street, featuring the attending authors.
I attended Word on the Street as a vendor for the first time this year. My book was displayed at the Toronto Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers booth (special thanks to James Downe for organizing). Sales went well and I managed to not run away screaming (my default reaction to anywhere with crowds), so I consider it a worthwhile weekend!
October 17-18: Returning to Can*Con & Moderating
Reunited with my cover artist Lana Kamaric!Hanging out with Can*Con chair and SFF author Marie Bilodeau
This was my third Can*Con, my second one as a panellist, and my first *gulp* as a moderator. Here is the thing with moderation: you actually need to prepare, while a panellist can show up and hope they sound smart for an hour. As someone who spent my school days with questionable studying habits and a tendency to not complete homework, I… am happy to report I actually performed some research and prepared questions beforehand. Were they smart questions? Eh.
The Toronto Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers vendor table at Can*Con
The new Brookstreet Hotel location was chaotic than the old Sheraton location. I grabbed a vendor table for the Toronto Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers (our second vendor table of the year), which also made for a nice landing spot for the group. A couple of us rented an AirBnB rather than staying at the hotel, creating nice memories of cooking together (by which I mean other people cooked and I ate).
Hooking the Reader panel, with Mark Robinson, Julie Czerneda, and Matt Moore.No Story Left Behind panel, with Monique Cuillerier and André GeleynseContinuation of Epic Fantasy panel, with Suyi Davies Okungbowa, S.M. Carrière, and Anuja Varghese
I participated on three panels:
Hooking the Reader: Breaking Down What Works – All about story openings. I read a passage from “Blood and Desert Dreams.”
No Story Left Behind: The Ups and Downs of Submitting Short Fiction – I discussed the current state of the short fiction field.
And of course… The Continuation of Epic Fantasy – My moderation assignment, in which the panellists discussed the current status of epic fantasy, and what it meant to write it in the year of 2025. Which, interestingly, leads to my next topic…
November 19: (Not So) Secret Novel?
On November 19, I sent an important email. It was not a story submission. It was not about a conference or festival. It was not to announce my imminent plans to start a takoyaki-and-bubble-tea shop.
It was to send the edited draft of my (dark, epic) fantasy novel to beta readers.
I’ve been writing novels on-and-off since I was around fifteen. I’ve accumulated half-written novels, written-into-a-hot-mess novels, too-long-to-sell novels, 80,000-word-act-one novels, NaNoWriMo novels that were technically 50,000-word successes but didn’t even scratch a quarter of the plot, and everything in between. This is the first time where I’m like, hey, this is finished and maybe—just maybe—only 50% chimeric monstrosity. Time will tell, but maybe—just maybe—I’ll have a novel ready for querying in 2026?
