My friend, lawyer, and fellow writer Gary Delafield handed me a great—and true—premise for a short-short about an old woman and the unusual advice she gets from her lawyer. Hijinks ensue. Never reviewed, so you'll have to make up your own mind

A desperate man with Olympic-level allergies, and a new-age masseuse who'll go to extremes to clear the blockage. It was my goal to write the first graphic sinus story, and by God, I still have the genre to myself. Not for the squeamish

Some people feel no empathy. An experimental drug makes them take a hard look in the mirror

My first sale, a rollicking post-apocalyptic tale of drag racing and demons

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories of the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).  The editor, selected by SFWA’s anthology Committee (chaired by Mike Resnick), is American science fiction and fantasy writer Mercedes Lackey. This year’s Nebula winners are Ursula Vernon, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Nancy Kress, and Jeff VanderMeer, with Alaya Dawn Johnson winning the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book. Praise for Nebula Awards Showcase 2014: “There is not a story in the bunch that is not engaging to the reader…. This is an excellent book for lovers of science fiction.” Praise for Nebula Awards Showcase 2013: “Featuring writing of the highest quality in the genre, this compilation is certain to appeal to those demanding imaginative fiction.” “Essential fare for short story aficionados, even though some of the contents have appeared in other collections.”

This is not so much a science fiction story as a story about science fiction, and the magical thinking that is so attractive when you're a bored kid in Bumblefuck, Iowa

From Daryl Gregory, whose Pandemonium was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory, comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative power that breaks new ground in contemporary fantasy. Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee until a mysterious disease killed a third of its residents and mutated most of the rest into monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease-dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)-vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies. Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn't change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside. Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker-and far weirder-mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax's future but the future of the whole human race

A mainstream story about that moment when you realize the walls are thin, the streets are dark, and there's no way you can protect what you love