My life has been propelled forward in some exciting ways since this summer. In August, I was notified I would be receiving a Literature Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council. I’m one of seven prose writers selected this year. We’ve read at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village, and tomorrow (October 28), we’ll read at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill at 2pm.

You can read my profile on the NCAC website, in which I sound very collegial and profesh. (Among other gems: “Some questions I find myself asking are, where do we draw the line at ‘human’?” Steinbacher continues. “Do love and intimacy alone humanize those of us who live at the expense of others?”) I’ve already used some of the funds to attend Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford’s online Writing Inclusive Fiction workshop.  I’ll also be making a last-minute appearance at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio next weekend.

“Some questions I find myself asking are, where do we draw the line at ‘human’? Do love and intimacy alone humanize those of us who live at the expense of others?”

One project I intend to support with this funding is work on a novel, which I began developing in June at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s SFF Novel Writers Workshop with Kij Johnson and Barbara Webb. (I’m fairly close-mouthed about it at the moment, but I may share some details once I’ve hammered them out further in the next month.) I met some amazing writers there, including R.F. Kuang, Gregory Scheckler, Becca Jordan, Caitlin Rogers, and Jake Frondorf. I also got to reconnect with the fabulous Marlee Jane Ward and M. Huw Evans.

I’ll be continuing to write short fiction and pushing out more stories that have been sitting on the back burner for some time while I was completing freelance projects over the past several months.

Once again, there is more news to come, but I’ve got to keep some secrets for now ;).

Happy fall! On my to-read list:

• The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017
• Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
• Autonomous, Annalee Newitz

Got a recommendation? Comment below.