11/24/20 – Vat Life reviewed by Amazing Stories
There’s a great review of my story Vat Life along with the rest of Speculative North issue #2 available on Amazing Stories, written by CSFFA hall-of-famer R Graeme Cameron.
You can find the review here.
Now all I can hope is that one day I’ll get a story published in Amazing Stories. A guy can dream…
10/30/20 – Little Gino published in 3 Moon Magazine
Kind of a sad story with some social commentary. An odd fictional premise, maybe, but it’s a story that’s not all that untrue.
Thank you to the team at 3 Moon Magazine for publishing my work.
Read Little Gino here.
9/25/20 – Vat Life published in Speculative North
Vat Life is a futuristic tale about life, love, and friendship that encourages you to think about what it means to have a body and whether you can live and love without one.
Thank you to the team at Spec North for their awesome feedback and edits.
Get your digital (and paperback!) copy here.
9/1/20 – The Meek Have Inherited the Earth published in Utopia Science Fiction
If you’re an introvert, you’ll love this satirical science fiction story. Tristan Evarts has given it an excellent home over at Utopia Science Fiction. It’s on sale now.
Get your digital copy here.
7/30/20 – Sunday Dinner with la Famiglia and Nonno’s Brain to be published in Stupefying Stories Showcase
It’s a happy birthday for me, now that my story has been accepted by Bruce Bethke over at Stupefying Stories. It’s an honor to have a story published by the person who coined the term Cyberpunk. As you can guess by the title, this story was inspired by my wacky Italian family and by my interests in neuroscience and consciousness. It’s the perfect combination of low-brow Italian-American humor and high-concept cognitive science.
You can read it now ahead of its official publication on the official Stupefying Stories blog.
4/6/20 – There Can Be No Hermits published in The Colored Lens
The Colored Lens just released their Spring 2020 issue with my story “There Can Be No Hermits”. This story means a lot to me, not just because it’s my first story published in a magazine that people actually pay money for, but because the topic is something I feel strongly about—the need for solitude, independence, and the desire to break away from the absurd pressures of social life. The title sort of comes from a D.H. Lawrence passage that goes, “A man could no longer be private and withdrawn. The world allows no hermits.” You can find the longer version of the passage on my favorite quotes page.
Get your digital copy of the magazine here.
3/22/20 – The Offspring of Your Dreams published in Fat Cat Magazine
Fat Cat Magazine published “The Offspring of Your Dreams”. This one has some uncomfortable subject matter, but the questions are worth thinking about. What if you could know what your future child’s personality would be like? What if technology enabled you to hear your hypothetical child speak to you as an adult? Would mothers be more selective about which embryos they keep if they knew what kind of adult they’d be bringing into the world?
On another note, this is my first time getting a third-person perspective story published. I’ve written a few others, but I have a much harder time writing them. After writing short stories for about a year now I’ve discovered that I almost exclusively prefer writing first-person narrators. I don’t know why. Maybe I’ll have more insight into this down the road. It could be that my favorite kinds of stories read like the narrator is having a conversation with you, and that’s just what I naturally go for. Also, this is my first story featuring only female characters. So thanks to Fat Cat for accepting this story. Check it out here, because how could you not want to read a magazine called Fat Cat? Their logo is the best. Thanks, Morgana. Keep up the good editing work.
12/24/19 – Glyphie’s Gift published in Exoplanet Magazine
New short story published in Exoplanet Magazine called Glyphie’s Gift. A grandma with dementia finds an unlikely friend in a furry alien who loves hearing her talk. This one is really about what it’s like to feel socially irrelevant and how alienating it can be when no one really listens to you or takes anything you say seriously. Aging and disease can be tragically off-putting, and here the loss of one’s memories in Alzheimer’s functions as a parallel to the premise of extraterrestrials feeding on the conscious thoughts of sentient beings. Thanks to Will at Exoplanet for the helpful editing and suggestions. The story got rejected a few times under a couple different titles and with slightly different endings. I’m glad it found a home at Exoplanet.
11/14/19 – Obsolescence published in Visitant Lit
New fiction published. This one is dedicated to my old friend, my 2007 Black Macbook. She got me through many good years. Also, I want to commend Visitant Lit for the beautiful design of their site and for their perfect pairings of photos with the poems and stories they publish. Check it out at: Visitant Lit
9/1/19 – Weekly Progress Meeting published in Blue Lake Review
I got a story published in Blue Lake Review. They publish some damn fine writing. Check it out: Blue Lake Review
8/1/19 – No ‘I’ on a First Date published in Bewildering Stories
Bewildering Stories published my story “No ‘I’ on a First Date.” It’s social satire with science fiction elements. Mostly it’s a psycholinguistic experiment in fiction form, asking what if it was taboo to talk about yourself on a first date? I’m glad that the editors at Bewildering stories appreciated the off-beat pronoun play and the jabs at linguistic conventions in this one. Check it out at: Bewildering Stories
7/1/19 – The Part of Me That Was Actually Me published in Fleas on the Dog
My short story “The Part of Me That Was Actually Me” is published in Fleas on the Dog. This acceptance feels like a huge win. The piece is about the struggle of an introvert. It has some uncomfortable moments, and I wasn’t sure anyone would identify with it. But the editors said some really kind things about it, and I’m elated that it resonated with them. Their magazine is refreshingly eclectic and downright awesome. You should check it out.
Read it here: FLEAS ON THE DOG
6/20/19 – The Decider published in Farther Stars Than These
The Decider is now up at Farther Stars Than These. In this story I wanted to portray the ordinary problem of indecision that humans want to escape from. The weight of a trivial choice can feel heavier when two people have to be on the same page. In this case a long-term couple is trying to decide what to order for dinner while watching TV.
When you make countless decisions a day, it’s the simplest ones that seem impossible. So I imagined a situation where people offload their mundane choices to an implanted decision device. The device interacts with the user’s brain, so the decision still feels like you made it.
Don’t feel like deciding what to get for take-out? Let some algorithm decide. Don’t feel like spending the little leisure time you have agonizing over what to do in your leisure time? The machine learning in your head will do it for you.
Read it here: The Decider – Farther Stars Than These
5/18/19 – Inhabiting Jolene published in 365 Tomorrows
I got a piece of flash published in 365 Tomorrows. This one came to me like lightning. Wrote it up in an afternoon and sent it out right away. It got rejected twice. I’m happy to see it get accepted here. And I’m thankful for the positive comments.
What I was trying to capture was that feeling of getting to know someone so deeply and have that person trust you so much that it feels like you’re allowed to roam freely in their head. As humans our only avenue into the depths of another person’s mind is through conversation. But I wondered about hypothetical beings that could understand and perceive the thoughts of others in a more direct way. And the little twist on this was the idea of consent. The mind is a private space, and it should be seen as an honor or a gift to allow someone to get that close. And I think the interesting thing in this story is that the two characters are not of the same species, not even of the same planet. Their minds are so different, and yet they can still find love in the exploration of one another’s subjectivity.
Read it here Inhabiting Jolene – 365 Tomorrows
Franco Amati 