Science Fiction & Fantasy

Sometimes life gets complicated. For the last five years, I’ve been dealing with the fallout from my heart attack. In the end, it caused me to change my life for the better, but it does come with some baggage. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that fear drove a lot of those changes. Fear that I might [...]

August was an unusual month in that I didn’t have any conventions, workshops, or meetings to attend. It was somewhat bittersweet in that I had very much wanted to attend the Worldcon in Finland, but couldn’t afford the trip. Everything I’ve heard from friends that did go made it sound like an amazing experience and [...]

As the month came to a close, I found myself without a viable editorial for this issue. I had one I thought would work, but it fizzled and went in the wrong direction. In a moment of desperation, I turned to Twitter:

Over the course of the next few hours, responses—serious and not—rolled in. So far, [...]

When the universe calls, you have no choice but to listen. Five years ago this month, it sent me a message in the form of a near-fatal heart attack. It was the sort of thing that not only caught me off guard, but my family, friends, and doctors as well. As I lay there in [...]

Since leaving my day job, I haven’t spent an entire month at home. I was initially concerned that without the required social interactions of my old job that I might over-embrace my hermit tendencies, but a recent flurry of invitations to various genre events and conferences has keep me out-and-about. Turns out that this is [...]

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about being self-employed is the flexibility to say “yes” to opportunities that would have previously been made complicated by the presence of the day job. As I write this, I’ve just returned from a day trip to Chicago where I had the chance to speak at an event hosted [...]

I left my day job at the beginning of February, but it’s only now beginning to feel real. Previously, whenever I had vacation time, I’d shift to full-time editor, so when I finally did quit, it just felt like one of those vacations: lots of work, little downtime. The same here, initially: I had a [...]

Congratulations to Sam J. Miller! “Things with Beards” from our June 2016 issue has been nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. This is the second year in a row that Sam has had a Clarkesworld story on the ballot and we couldn’t be happier for him. You might be amused to find [...]

For twenty-eight years, I’ve worked in higher education and K-12 as a technology professional. It was a career I loved, but over time, the profession and in particular, the institutional approach to the profession, has made it a less pleasant place to be. Almost five years ago, after my heart attack, I realized that my [...]

Sometimes catching up with an old friend can set your mind running on an unexpected course. In this case, it was some passing thoughts on kaiju movies and how strong they appeal to people like us. Those giant monsters and robots have a special place in our hearts and for people our age, getting a [...]