Somehow it’s already (dramatic sting) awards season. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of work come out this year, and I’d be honored if you’d consider it when you’re nominating. I’ve grouped them below by category.
Short Story Collection
All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From with Neon Hemlock Press
My debut short fiction collection contains 14 stories, 3 of them never before published.
“Across every genre and tone, Izzy Wasserstein imbues her stories with a unique power: to reach through the page and into your chest, where they hold your heart as if it’s the last of its kind. These are gorgeously-told queer tales of grief and love, fear and wonder, for people and for entire worlds, and they give comfort and strength to the exact parts of our souls that this moment in history relentlessly erodes. Dress your wounds with these words. Drink up their warmth in the dead of winter. They’ll take care of you.”
–Elly Bangs, author of Unity
Novelette
“Shadows of the Hungry, the Broken, the Transformed“ in CossMass Infinities (9500 words)
Justine’s shadow watches her. It stands under the lamp post across from her flat, her smoky semblance, flickering and shifting under the gaslight. She’s at her window, tea cooling in her hands. Though the shadow has no eyes, Justine is certain that it stares at her, just as she is certain it is hers. She would know it anywhere.
This is my first published novelette, and it’s near and dear to my heart. If you’ve found yourself needing community in hard times, or struggling under the burdens of institutions that are supposed to support you, then please know I wrote this for you.
Short Stories
“Everything the Sea Takes, it Returns“ in Lightspeed (2700 words)
Everything the sea takes, it gives back in its own way and its own time. That was what Jess’s grandmother believed, what she’d told Jess as they stood in the shadow of the giant red cedar that had washed ashore, its severed roots thicker than Jess’s body. It must have drifted for a thousand years or more to return to them in that moment.
My ode to the Pacific Northwest, and a meditation on loss and how we keep going despite it. I’m hugely proud of this one, and if you only have time to read one story of mine, this is the one I’d recommend.
“These Whispering Remains“ in Decoded (7500 words), paywalled
I pull myself up from the morgue table, from the fragments of bone that were once a young woman, then vomit bile and not much else into a trash can. I’ve long ago learned not to eat before communing with the dead. Jensen holds my hair back as I empty my stomach, and when I straighten, wiping my lips with the back of my sleeve, his brow is furrowed.
“Don’t tell me,” I say, but he does anyway.
“Worse than ever,” he says, meaning the shaking, the sweating, the pained cries that come along with the ability to share the dead’s experiences. Jensen calls communing my gift. If so, it’s a cruel one.
This story is about grief, burnout, and what we owe the dead. It’s also my response to the many deeply problematic elements of the “true crime” genre.
“Blades, Stones, and the Weight of Centuries,” “The Case of the Soane Museum Thefts,” and “Hopper in the Frying Pan” all appear for the first time in All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From, and all are eligible for nominations.
Non-Fiction
“The Necessity of Trans Joy“ in Uncanny (1200 words)
We deserve stories as rich and varied as the stories about cis people. We need stories like “Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue,” and stories of joy. When we write trans tragedies, they’ll be the tragedies we need to tell, ones that center us, that help us make meaning of this transphobic world. And we won’t limit ourselves. We’ll write comedies, romances, erotica, weird tales, thrilling space adventures, and stories of triumph.
Even in our worst times, we will find joy. We’ve always found ways to have it and we’ll keep doing so. And when those joys seem impossibly far away, fiction can help us hold on.
This one does what it says on the tin, or at least in the title.
