2021 continued to be a difficult creative year, but I published some stories I’m quite proud of, and another, currently out for consideration, was long-listed in Uncharted’s Summer SFF Short Story Contest, judged by Ken Liu. Thank you for reading and for considering my work as you name your nominations for 2022.
“Vertical Flight”
Metaphorosis
May 2021
Every night before I go to sleep, I take time to remember: we had different pollinators there, lime-green bees and black butterflies that shimmered like airborne shadows. In the spring, the daffodils bloomed scarlet and orange. In summer, the poppies gilded the hillsides in pink.
When I lie in bed remembering home, I feel like Dorothy, peering through her ransacked cabin door into an alien world where even the light was different—only in the end, Dorothy gets to go home, to her comfortable, familiar colors. I just keep clicking my heels, and instead of there’s no place like home, I’m praying almost there. Almost there.
“From Iron Freed”
Flashpoint SF
May 2021
The fae’s dark eyes stared straight into Gwen, stripping bare her excuses without saying a word. She had vast ebony wings and a mass of shining black curls, and as Gwen left, mute with shame, the fae’s proud, hard face vanished beneath obsidian curls and feathers.
Maybe the magician didn’t return that night after all; maybe the fae was biding her time. Regardless, she chose to conceal the knife until the magician brought her onstage for the second night’s performance. What little Gwen saw from backstage was a blur: black wings unfurling, a splash of the magician’s blood, a flare of light that left them all blinded and screaming while the fae escaped.
“Infinite Runtime”
Shoreline of Infinity Issue 21
April 2021
They emerged from the smoke and fog like walking towers. Mel theorized that after they’d learned to self-replicate, they’d chosen forms that they thought would terrify us most. As they closed in on us that evening, mountains marching, skyscrapers given life, I again felt the primordial fear that flared in my gut every time I saw them: we’d created new life, and that life had made itself our gods.
Laura Duerr 
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