This one's gonna be a longer one; I have a few items with big feelings attached to them to share!
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“Come.” She gently pushed Nissa off her and got to her feet again. Laughter would sail for hours. Thank goodness Ani had remembered to refuel earlier that week. They had a month, maybe, before they’d need more gas. And the money for it. “Candles.”
I hope you’ll consider purchasing a copy of the Hope is Not Passive anthology, which is available for pre-order today. All proceeds will be donated to Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit organization providing legal aid and support to unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children in the United States. While you can purchase from any platform or vendor you’d like, I encourage you to buy directly from the publisher as linked above, as this will yield higher proceeds to the charity.
I found the call for this anthology on the first day of Pesach, and my heart stopped in my throat. Each year, during Passover, Jews are called to remember what it is to be a stranger in a strange land. This story is about being a stranger in a strange universe, searching for safety and community. It was, at the time of submission (and acceptance) my oldest and most rejected story. While typically I try to submit pieces only to markets that will pay me (I deserve to be compensated for my work), I make exceptions for charity anthologies. And this charity and this story felt perfect for one another.
I wrote "Project_Golem" in the summer of 2022 when there was an anthology call for Jewish Sci-Fi. It is one of my favorite stories I’ve written for a few different reasons.
I poured my love of pluralistic Judaism into this story. College was a revolutionary time for me, throwing me into an engaged community of Jews from different practices and backgrounds. I sang in a chorus whose music spanned so many Jewish traditions, and whose singers taught me so much about myself and my own relationship to Judaism, distinct from them and theirs. Judaism has always been to me a place where there is space for you to find yourself, and whatever will make your spirit shine.
I am in my core a Diasporist. Judaism would not exist without the determination of Diaspora Jews and two thousand years of wandering, traditions of storytelling, and the refusal to assimilate in order to participate in dominant cultures. Judaism is to this day a refuge for me when things are dark, and I learned that from the tradition that brought my forbears to these shores, where they could make lives for themselves in a country that promised freedom and justice for all (a promise it hasn’t always been the best at, but which Jews—so rarely promised that elsewhere in the world—finally benefitted from).
While getting editorial feedback on this story, I made a Catholic, a Muslim, an Orthodox Jew, and an Atheist all cry. Can’t really want more from a story like this one.
This story is so dear to me; I hope it will be dear to you too.
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Donating "Project_Golem" to this anthology was a huge personal victory for me. Being able to see this story in print, to hold the words in my hands means the world to me.
But it wasn't the only victory I had in the past few months, and the next one is a lot harder to articulate.
Earlier this month, I sold a story to Clarkesworld Magazine, which will be published in an upcoming issue.
When I shared this news to friends, I got one of two replies:
"Congrats! What's Clarkesworld?"
"Holy shit."
It has been such an incredibly humbling experience—to have a victory so great that I never assumed it was possible, and then having to explain why it is in fact a victory to 75% of the people I share the news with.
I, like many other sci-fi writers, submit a new sci-fi story to Clarkesworld for the "ceremonial rejection" before shopping it around elsewhere. ("Project_Golem" was rejected from this magazine early on in its submission journey; so have all my other sci-fi stories until this point.) It is, for writers of speculative short fiction, considered to be one of the white whales, one of the most sought-after and prestigious markets to sell something to. If you are reading this newsletter because you like me, and you are also interested generally in reading some amazing sci-fi short stories, you should be checking out Clarkesworld.
I genuinely thought that I'd get a rejection in three days, per usual, and then I'd proceed to the next market. But a month after submission, and the day before my birthday, I got an acceptance email and a contract for my story "River Night has fallen." I'll be screaming to the high heavens when it's actually released.
I got my author copies of Of Swords and Roses, where I share a Table of Contents once again with my friend Sasha Kielman and a few other members of my writing communities!
I'll be going to a Romance Convention with my friends Jenna Levine and Katie Shepard in Bozeman Montana early next month!
All and all, a nice big July for your local Celia!
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And, once again, the links to my stories that have come out so far this year!
Oh you thought this email was done? Not quite yet!
I saw The Odyssey last week and I encourage everyone to go. I talked in my last newsletter about how reinterpretations can breathe new life into a story, and to me, Nolan's version of this epic and foundational poem was just that. It was heartfelt, imaginative, horrifying, gripping, and thoughtful.
I am typically a Nolan skeptic: I think he's a good film maker, but that his work is frequently overblown. I went in with low expectations and was floored. While there were some moments of ham-fistedness (a thing I am more inclined to blame on studios increasingly expecting their audience to be watching a movie with a phone in hand and thus not paying full attention), I was swept away and felt that it deserved the three hour run time I didn't feel Oppenheimer deserved.
