2023 wrap-up (Award Eligibility post)

It's that time of year to look back at what I had published this past year (and supposedly to advocate for them to appear on year-end recommendation lists and award short lists and the like, but I'm never very good at that part of it). I had 3 short stories published in 2023 (one flash), 2 poems, and one chapbook of microfictions. Plus one short story reprinted in an anthology.


"The Life Cycle of a Shadow" appeared in the anthology *A Compendium of Enigmatic Species* It's a pseudo-journalistic piece about the lesser and greater shadows and the threat one specific shadow poses to the world 

https://practicalfantasists.wordpress.com/2023/02/09/a-compendium-of-enigmatic-species-now-available/


"Excavating Lost Languages" appeared in issue 8 of Frozen Wavelets. It's a flash story full of linguistic whimsy and imaginary writing systems, lost to time. 

https://frozenwavelets.com/sdm_downloads/issue-8/


"What Passes for Eyes in Dreams and Death" appeared in issue 92 of Fantasy Magazine. (And currently short-listed for a best-of anthology...) A Piranesi-tinted story of the beings that haunt a funeral home. Tangent thinks "It would have worked better as a poem" ...

https://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fm/fiction/what-passes-for-eyes-in-dreams-and-death/


Now the poems. "Hands That Cannot Grasp" appeared in spring 2023 issue of Kaleidotrope. It's a poem of transformation. 

https://kaleidotrope.net/archives/spring-2023/hands-that-cannot-grasp-by-daniel-ausema/


And "The Alien Words, Formed and Empty" appeared in the fall 2023 issue of Star*Line. It's a poem about aliens, architecture, and communication.

https://sfpoetry.com/sl/issues/starline46.4.html


Finally my chapbook: *The Market of Magical Goods* is a collection of drabbles about a magical market, a little over half never before published. It's fun, short, and whimsical.

https://www.amazon.com/Market-Magical-Goods-Daniel-Ausema/dp/B0C87SH75D/


And it may not be award eligible, but do check out my "The Triptych of the Final String," which was reprinted in November in the anthology *The Cosmic Muse*

https://books2read.com/u/br6Z67


Do I have a favorite from this year? Don't make me pick...But "What Passes for Eyes in Dreams and Death" is the sentimental favorite because of Fantasy Magazine closing down.


As a story it's high on craft and strangeness. Or, you know, "shoulda been a poem..."

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