Hey guys my book is being adapted for TV by Universal International Studios haha oh did I mention that I sold a book haha did I mention it was. Uh. Three books. To Tor. In a seven figure six house auction.
Anyway read the
@DEADLINE
article for deets.
Tired: moving in silence like the g in lasagna
Wired: posting the PM announcement of my dreams
I am so excited for everyone to read SUBLIMATION and also the other two books that are not SUBLIMATION
hi guys please read my story WHY DONT WE JUST KILL THE KID IN THE OMELAS HOLE in
@clarkesworld
it is about killing the kid in the omelas hole I am cashing in my omelas retelling check. Mind the title. It is about the title.
ill put on my sincerity hat for a moment:
this is fucking wild. when i was in high school i used to read clarkesworld stories on my laptop between class and go "wow this is really good. wish i could write like that"
so uh. this is really cool. thanks for liking my story.
Congratulations to our annual readers' poll winners (and finalists).
Best Short Story
2022 Winner: “Calf Cleaving in the Benthic Black” by Isabel J. Kim
does anyone want my essay about why Barbie is a SFF movie this is not a joke please hire me to write an essay about why Barbie is squarely a SFF movie within the conventions of genre fiction
I've been monitoring the rebuilding subscriptions post-Amazon for the magazines that have been impacted. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that survival depends on us being more shameless. So... If you like what we do, maybe it's time to subscribe:
graphic design is my passion. please consider me for awards and such no i am actually serious about that one please consider me. thank you for your time.
hello I’m psyched to tell you I’m in here with “Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist” (originally in
@clarkesworld
) along with a lot of names I’m delighted to be listed next to!!!!!!!
& thank you to
@kuangrf
&
@JohnJosephAdams
&
@MarinerBooks
!!😭💖💖
Heyo my new story in
@clarkesworld
is “Day Ten Thousand” pls read it if you like:
1) recursive narratives
2) the name “Dave”
3) wheels
4) “an attempt at Vonnegut by way of Isabel pastiche-ing herself”
Dont read if you do not like:
1) iterated suicide
Ok maybe an actual post: honored as fuck to be up for the astounding, especially looking at some of the names on the list 👀 I consider this an absolute win, good luck to all the finalists!!! 💖💖💖
hello we r doing a SFF newsletter magazine & we’re doing soft launch for the next few months to test the waters.
I’m our first months EIC - we’ve got a reprint from
@IoriKusano
tmrw AND AND AND my food crimes essay :3
S u b s c r i b e
hewwo writing tips thread:
1) every piece of sff tech/magic should cause a problem (even if it solves a separate problem)
2) rewrite the beginning
3) rewrite the ending
4) there needs to be a "problem cascade" ie: the worst thing for the protag should always happen next
Hi this is the only piece of flash I’ve ever published and i felt like it was so weird that I sat on it for a year before sending it to
@LightspeedMag
who said “this is good actually” anyway, it’s got the best title I’ve ever written please read it xoxo
you may ask yourself “Isabel what are you trying to achieve here what is the ethical takeaway” and I will say “I am a 27 year old lawyer who only barely squeaked past my ethics test don’t listen to me about anything”
i bitch about writing constantly but when ppl ask me "have you thought about using ai?" they're fundamentally misunderstanding the point of what im trying to achieve. ideas are cheap. the bright drudgery of execution & the magic spark of when i figure something out is the point.
A HUGE congratulations to
@isabeljkim
for winning a Shirley Jackson award!
You can read her award-winning story, “You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday”, on khōréō‘s website (link threaded).
more coherent tweet to come when it’s not 4:30am where I am. But huge thanks to
@StiSal
and
@EngleLaird
and the
@assemblemedia
team; my life has gotten very weird in the last month and I’m so freaking excited.
delighted to share that my story “Zeta-Epsilon” is in this year’s BASFF, thank youuu
@JohnJosephAdams
and
@hughhowey
for the inclusion, and shoutout to
@clarkesworld
for originally publishing it!!!
It's Best American Day! Here are the table of contents and the notable stories for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 edited by
@hughhowey
and I:
Series Page:
TOC:
Notables:
i've got a new story in
@clarkesworld
today. It's one of my favorite things I've written :)
Two spaceship scavengers crack open a dead generation ship and find a fun little ethical conundrum inside.
Stephen King: so ursula we're all been thinking it over
King: and we finally figured out a solution for omelas
Ursula Le Guin: why are you doing this
King: no no we've really got it this time
Le Guin: that's not the point of the story
King:
King: c'mon aren't you even curious?
Rest assured I will continue to post food crimes here though no matter how many books I sell (sequel to gatorbread probably coming soon) (gatorbread is gatorade bread)
its my BIRTHDAY so everyone please a) read my words and say good job isabel and/or b) use it as an excuse to buy a piece of cake and eat it guilt-free.
got an acceptance yesterday from a market ive wanted to crack for years :) im going to be annoying and vague about it tho sry but!! its for my story about art! ai! not the question of why would an ai create art but why the hell would ANYONE create art!
My mother has walked over to the thanksgiving table with a stack of magazines and books I have been published in to show my cousins and uncle and aunt and I am going to perish of mortification
the deeper i get into my book draft the more i go "wow this is way weirder than i was expecting"
anyway, pulling a classic iz move and rewriting a bunch of mythology. also ppl keep ending up in bathrooms having phone calls? guess this takes place in an AU with good cell service
thank you everyone for the congratulations for my shirley jackson win, and thank you to the jurors, and congrats to the other winners and other nominees T_T <3, i'm honored as all hell, but nothing gets made in a void, so..... (1/3)
updated my spreadsheet, realized ive sold 11 stories to pro markets in the last couple of years, accidentally passing the 10 milestone. a few years ago i was like "i would love to sell one(1) fiction" so....yeah! i feel good about this! i'm allowed to b annoying on twitter!
ok now that im home:
the pilot-commander zeta san tano has ejected himself from airlock. however, there is no world where the ship mks epsilon could have allowed him to die.
what the hell happened here?
"zeta-epsilon" is a story about stealing a spaceship.
Second person supremacy - I’ve always felt that the second person does so much work in creating an intimate alienation between the reader and the pov character, especially since most audiences aren’t expecting 2nd person
2nd person POV 🧵🪡
I love 2nd person pov in fiction & often wonder if it’s bc it resonates so entirely, given that I’ve lived most of my life in second person. Particularly in a family where you don’t only represent yourself & your choices are often dominated by another
1/3
ive published 15 stories but every time i go to srsly work on a draft i have a moment b4 i start of oh god. oh fuck. ive lost it. im never getting it back. no more bright kiss of the muse. your boy has forgotten every skill shes ever learned. its all over for me now.
If i were smart i woulda been leveraging my omelas retelling to get people to vote for me for Things and Stuff this year. Too bad i was busy being cool and normal and googling myself instead.
but hey, did you like the omelas story? hate the omelas story? try this stuff out too.
graphic design is my passion. please consider me for awards and such no i am actually serious about that one please consider me. thank you for your time.
hey consider me on your ballot because….
A) (earnest) you like my writing and think I’ve done an award worthy job in the last two years
B) (silly) my vibe is impeccable and my posts bang and I have so much rizz and also slay
Countdown to the Close of 2023 Hugo Award, Astounding Award and Lodestar Award!
Voting for 2023 Hugo Award, Astounding Award and Lodestar Award will be closed on September 30, at 11:59 p.m. Hawaiian Time.
Thank you
@paulaguran
again for including my
@clarkesworld
story in The Year’s Best Fantasy vol 2 !! Got it in the mail today and soooo cool to see it in print :3!
cant wait for my next short story to come out and for everyone to say "isabel what is this?" and "isabel is this......a story?" and "isabel this is not how any of this works" and "isabel this is very depressing actually?"
:Db
New favorite shirt
@wowiftruepod
@wowiftruepod
Sadly “my podcast co-host got a 7 figure book deal and all I got was this tshirt” would only be applicable to me and thus not sellable. But this is for sale.
my dad was reading my latest story in
@clarkesworld
and two pages in he was like "wow! this is really SCIENCE FICTION science fiction, huh?"
like hes not WRONG,
so let’s say that the infinite word machine is a foregone conclusion. You can press the button and bypass the effort forever.
Who is YOU? Are you a ceo of a publishing house? Are you a 16 year old writing fanfic? Are you an indie author? Are you a tech startup cto?
ok last ai writing post then ill stop i prommy:
putting ethics aside, i dont like using ai tools to write bc it feels like it just tells me what i should have written and i go Thats Not What I Fucking Meant or No Thats Not How I Would Have Said It and it feels like
hi. friendly awards szn promo post here.
if you like me or my work, please consider slamming your favorite story by isabel j. kim down on your Hugo or Locus ballots.
and :V consider "isabel j. kim" for the astounding award?
and ok, here's why:
some news for everyone who doesn't stalk my twitter bio:
i wrote a book about magic. its cool as hell.
@StiSal
reps me now. he's also cool as hell.
im also cool as hell, but we knew that already. now im cool as hell w/ an agent. 🥰🤩🔥🔥🔥
I’m in this with my story “Day Ten Thousand” originally published in
@clarkesworld
, and the rest of the TOC looks absolute fire, so you should def pick up a copy >:3
(Thanks
@_vajra
for the inclusion!!)
do you like reading stories about
DEATH?
well we're publishing Afterlives: The Year's Best Death Stories, 2023 -- curated by
@_vajra
this summer.
you KNOW it's gonna be good, because,
JUST LOOK AT THIS TOC.
stacked.
check it out and pls share!
ykno what I’m just gonna say it I’ve got covid, a twisted ankle, and I’m on TWO closings at work please take pity on me and read my newest story I have no energy for promotion 💀
lets go back to a simpler time when I had neither covid or a twisted ankle
The
@ShirleyJAwards
nom was a huge delightful surprise to me, thank you again to the
@KhoreoMag
team for their support and belief in my story!!! And congrats to the other nomineeeees !!
Cat's out of the bag! "You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday" by
@isabeljkim
was nominated for a
@ShirleyJAwards
! 🎉 🧡 Congrats Isabel and all of the other nominees! The full list can be found here:
graphic design is my passion. please consider me for awards and such no i am actually serious about that one please consider me. thank you for your time.
ok i ended up deciding "its good for ppl to share stats" so here's my 2022 writing wrapped:
short fiction:
- submitted 9 times w/ 5 stories
- 6 stories accepted (1 from 2021)
- finished 5 stories (all sold, crazy)
- 7 stories published
Made gatorade bread with the boys last night - shockingly edible, actually had great texture, did not really actually taste like Gatorade other than a hint of a chemical taste to blue & red and a citrus flavor to the orange. I don’t NOT recommend doing this.
my favorite (least favorite) thing is opening up an old draft and being like yeah! Nice! Words! Story! This is something! Wait a minute, it just breaks off mid sentence? Hey come back here. What the fuck were you thinking about. Where was this going. Sir? Sir??
very :3! and honored to see that im on the locus recommended reading list THREE times for short fiction thats cool as hell and its among very good company !!
considering i have 17 stories listed on my website i should probably organize these better :T (im updating my website because im gods strongest soldier)
tbh if youve ever wondered why my writing is Like That, one of my beta readers has aphantasia, the other has a photographic memory (one only tells truth the other lies...), and i personally read 4x faster than the regular human. no one involved experiences text normally lol.
at work today I did my best lie ever and pretended to be someone who thought the idea of a Baja blast pie was crazy and haha I’d never make one haha nuts! So weird! Such a weird thing for Taco Bell!
(My friends and I baked a Baja blast pie crime three years ago)
new story drops tomorrow I’m so excited to share this one, I don’t want to spoil it but “hey what if the reality tv show murdergame didn’t kill you but never lets you die”
tbh something i'd tell my younger writer self is that "its ok that your writing isnt every style or genre of writing that u like to read." like i spent a solid chunk of my adolescence thinking i'd write epic fantasy but boy is that not what i write.
So I sold this a while back and it’s out next month I’m p sure and im kind of like ah boys you’re rly going to read this one, aren’t you, ah jeez, everyone who beta’ed this went “Isabel what is this” but it’s probably fine
Dearly beloved we r gathered here today because I have another story out in
@clarkesworld
, along with
@zanzjan
@WordsByGoodman
etc!
Pls enjoy “Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist”
Yes I have the longest title by far. I’m valid.
hello this is my sff awardsposting thread. please consider my words for awards if you think they are good words. heres the three that i think are best by my own subjective view of my work. thanks for considering me.
i will be regular after this, sorry this is my arrogant in bad taste shithead tweet re: ballots, reading lists, etc.:
HAHA ISABELSWEEP HAHAHAHA TAKE THAT EVERYONE SUCKIT I AM SO GOOD AT WRITING I AM THE KING OF BEING ON LISTS
ok im done now thanks for putting up with that
also
@isabeljkim
graduates from law school today!!!!! wish her a happy law school graduation by listening to our podcast. it is taurus season, so may i suggest episode 6 ft.
@El_Silvero
, notable taurus podcaster?
I keep starting and deleting posts for twt and also my blog/newsletter and what I’ve realized is that I only enjoy stating my opinions through an internet pseud or through writing an entire piece of fiction. Which is like. Dude. Could you have picked something more convenient.
about to debut my newest dnd son: a sentient microphone ghost bard possessing some guy, constantly interviewing the rest of the party for his podcast. he sucks. his name is mike. short for microphone.
"If Isabel J. Kim is taking requests, I’d love a full length novel or graphic novel set in this world, please and thank you." ❤️❤️❤️ listen the MOMENT anyone wants to pay me to write one I WILL
new story drop: murdergames, narrative deaths, and trying to escape from the infinite cycle of reality television by casting yourself as the bad guy.
unfortunately, audiences love a good villain
everyone else is playing, i want to play!!
(this ones for the boys who dont submit anything)
Submissions Sent: 6
Rejections: 3
Acceptances: 4
Complete stories written in 2022: 3
Upcoming pubs: 3
*I got an acceptance for a 2021 sub re: the numbers not matching up, lol
—Half Year Writing Reflection (January-June 2022)—
Submissions Sent: 354
Rejections: 270
Acceptances: 40
Solicited work: 4
*I noticed in January I somehow managed to send out 101 submissions (mix of no sim + sim subs), and it still boggles my mind how I had the energy 🫣
Taco Bell big cheez it review: it tastes exactly like a normal cheez it but big, and a bit heated up. So of course it’s delicious.
Apparently you can just ask them for this at the counter and it costs a dollar.
solved a couple of conceptual problems that have been haunting me in drafts im working on and also rearranged all my furniture, no, no words were physically written today why are you asking
people should nominate me for the hugos next year because it will be way easier for me to take off work to go if i can point to that and be like look ive been nominated for the hugo awards can i pretty please have the week off (jk they would probably give it to me either way)
writing is so silly i had a breakthrough today in a story and the breakthrough was "oh the WRONG CHARACTER is getting stranded in space! haha this fixes everything!" buddy how does this fix anything, how is this a real problem.