Selected Short Fiction
And short stories are tough as hell to write.
The Binding of Isaac
A purchase, then a sacrifice.
Appears in VICE’s Terraform anthology, a FSG Original
A Righteous Man
A missionary in nineteenth-century Africa suffers a chilling crisis of faith
Appears in the Trespass anthology published by Amazon Original Stories, Feb. 2022
Presque vue
A scientist reckons with her affliction.
Appears in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 41, Jul/Aug. 2021
How to Pay Reparations: A Documentary
A city tries to pay reparations to its citizens.
Appears in Slate.
A Room of One’s Own
A story about an old woman and possibilities and companionship.
Part of the Us in Flux series put on by Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination.
My conversation with Professor Michael G. Bennett about the story and its themes is available here.
Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, 2020
The Hurt Pattern
A young tech professional stumbles upon a conspiracy involving algorithmic police and big banks.
Collected in Made to Order: Robots and Revolution (2020).
Amazon, B&N, Indiebound
A Universe of Wishes (ed. Dhonielle Clayton), Dec. 2020
Habibi
A boy from Long Beach and a boy from Gaza begin a strange correspondence.
Appears in A Universe of Wishes, Dec. 2020
Uncanny Magazine Issue 30, Nov. Sept./Oct. 2019
THE FIFTH DAY
A gravedigger caught in a cycle of grief is forced to reconsider her duty and her place in the world.
Appears in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 30. Sept./Oct. 2019
Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America (ed. Ibi Zoboi), Jan. 2019
SAMSON AND THE DELILAHS
When a new girl moves in next door, a young Nigerian speech prodigy is introduced to something that will literally rock the foundations of his world.
Appears in Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America
Omenana Issue 8, Nov. 2016
SCREAMERS
A young man follows his policeman father into the gulf separating Africans and African-Americans.
Appears in Omenana Magazine, Issue 8. Nov. 2016
Reprinted in Apex Book of World SF 5
Speculating Futures: Black Imagination & The Arts
2016 | 42.1 • 42.2
STILL LIFE WITH HAMMERS, A BROOM & A BRICK STACKER
A story about people left behind in a dilapidated New Haven after the end of the world.
Appears in Speculating Futures: Black Imagination & The Art, 2016 | 42.1 • 42.2
This issue was awarded Council of Editors of Learned Journals 2018 Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement.
Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sept. 2014
PLACE OF WORSHIP
An alcoholic garbageman searches for peace and recovery in space. Asimov’s, Sept. 2014
Panverse Three: An Anthology
DUST TO DUST
Set during the fall of the Soviet Union, a Czech detective tracks an alchemist, following the trail of personal and political destruction he leaves in his wake. (collected in Panverse Three, 2011)
Included in Locus Magazine’s Recommended Reading for 2011.
Reprinted in Lightspeed Magazine, June 2019.