2016 In Review / by Naru Sundar

2016 was a pretty good year, I had 3 stories published and one reprint plus an additional sale that will appear in 2017.  About parity with the previous year.  I can't complain, though I had a few near misses with some stories that were dear to my heart that are still out on submission.  My two favorite stories from this year are listed below.  Both of these (and the rest of my new fiction published in 2016) are Nebula and Hugo eligible.

  • A Handful of Dal - POC Destroy SF! Special Edition of Lightspeed.  I loved this story for many reasons.  It was about food, and specifically about how recipes change and stretch over time from generation to generation while maintaining that connection to food and family and memory that forms the backbone of so much in culture.  It was also a part of the fantastic POC Destroy SF! special edition of Lightspeed which was a project I was really happy to be a part of.
  • Straight Lines - Mothership Zeta #3.  This was a really fun story for me and took on a different voice then I usually adopt for my stories.  It ended up on the Tangent recommended reading list for 2016 as well as receiving some kind words elsewhere.

In terms of poetry it was a great year -- five publications plus another poem coming out in the middle of 2017.  My poem "Origami Crane / Light-defying Spaceship" won the Prix Aurora for best poem (unexpected!).  All of my poems from this year are eligible for the Rhysling as well as this year's Prix Aurora.  My poetry favorites that I wanted to highlight are listed below:

  • The Rambutan Man - Strange Horizons.  This poem, a reflection on both the political struggles of Sri Lanka was a particularly personal poem, and I was glad that it found a home at Strange Horizons.
  • Moirae - The Mithila Review.  This was my longest poem to date and dealt with cycles of destruction and rebirth as viewed through the lens of the fates from Greek mythology.  

The rest of my fiction and poetry from 2016 is listed in my bibliography page.