Awards Eligibility 2025
These are my published short stories and poetry eligible for nomination for 2025 awards.
I hope you will consider my work if you're voting for speculative awards including the Rhysling (poetry), Nebula (fiction and poetry), Hugo, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, BSFA, and Dragon awards, as well as others not listed here!
All poetry is eligible for the Rhysling and Nebula, among others.
If you're interested in reading a piece for awards consideration listed here that's not available for free online,
feel free to reach out to me via the form on my Contact page.
Pieces marked with an asterisk (*) are free to read online.
Top Pieces for Awards Consideration: Poetry
*
To Be the Change (43 lines). Published in Strange Horizons, March 10. Genre: Fantasy
Reviewed by Charles Payseur in
Locus Magazine #773 as "a piece that challenges those who believe their power and corruption to be eternal,
recognizing that no amount of power or control can prevent people from knowing and following their hearts
and being themselves. Nocito does a beautiful job bringing the prophecy, and its fulfillment, to vivid life."
My father’s least favorite prophecy
has been reviewed by five generations of scholars
and soundly dismissed by them all.
When the heir becomes a daughter …
* What the Birds Taught Me (26 lines). Published in Heartlines Spec, July 31. Genre: solarpunk
I learned how to sing from a sparrow’s beak,
a steel prosthetic to replace its old and crumpled one.
* Eagle-Eyed (46 lines). Published in Eye to the Telescope Issue 57: Birds. Genre: slipstream
The doctors had no explanation
for the bird’s eyes set into
my flawed and human head.
* To the Swallow's Final Hatchling (41 lines). Published in Orion's Belt, August 2025 issue. Genre: fantasy/fairytale
Save you your wings, little daughter,
and one day,
save your daughter's wings, too.
them // us (46 lines). Published in Utopia Science Fiction, March 1. Genre: science fiction
Note: Contact if interested in reading
They
drop from the sky at moonrise
when silver beams twist around their silver capsule.
Top Pieces for Awards Consideration: Short Fiction
An Unexpected Wombat (500 words). Published in Worlds of Possibility, June. Genre: slipstream/fantasy
Described by editor Julia Rios as a story that "shows us another kind of coming of age vision
as a trans person finds hope and comfort amidst inner chaos."
Note: Contact if interested in reading
I hold absolutely still, motionlessness morphing into illusion. When I finally stir, I become my mind’s self, standing knee-deep in snowflakes containing my memories.
* A Single Song (750 words). Published in Factor Four Magazine Issue 48 (July 1). Genre: horror/dark fantasy
A harp made of bones, they say, will only ever play a single song.The Science of Transient Cartography (2100 words). Published in The Daily Tomorrow, February. Genre: science fiction/futuristic
Note: Contact if interested in readingMy pa likes to say, his curmudgeonly jaw working at the spoon he often inserts between his lips when he’s trying to suck the last vestiges of honey from the well-worn metal ornamentation, that when he was a boy, maps were static things, only changing when wars were fought and lost and won.
I usually like to remind him that we don’t have wars anymore.
All Awards-Eligible Poetry Published in 2025
Beauty's Captor (34 lines). Published in Star*Line Issue 48.3 (Summer 2025). Genre: fantasy
Note: Contact if interested in reading
Sleeping Beauty reimagined from the point of view of the vines
Bait (24 lines). Published in Black Cat Tales (Black Cat Publishing), June 13. Genre: dark fantasy
Note: Contact if interested in reading
They don't realize
they're the bait.
Whittled and Burned (16 lines, dark fantasy). Upcoming in Trollbreath magazine. Genre: fantasy
Upcoming!
Before the Gingerbread House (20 lines). Published in The Limerick in Chains (Lightning Cellar Books). Genre: fairytale
Note: Contact if interested in reading
The next morning, they set off once more
for the path they had followed before.
All Awards-Eligible Short Fiction Published in 2025
To Catch A Name (3900 words). Published in Morgana le Fay anthology (Flame Tree Press), March 31 (UK)/April 15 (US). Genre: fantasy
Note: Contact if interested in reading
Trans take on Morgana's mythos / choosing (or finding) your name
I cobble him together, that imagined nighttime boy, out of hawthorn boughs and apple blossoms and the gentle, thumping rhythm of my own heartbeat.
Then I hide him in my garden.
Imperfect Monsters (2000 words). Upcoming in Into the Dark (All Worlds Wayfarer). Genre: dark fantasy/horror
Note: Contact if interested in reading
The machinations of stars / multiple perspectives / second person / monsters throughout the ages
You are the final monster, and the stars are bored. They do not wait to reveal your true nature.
Speak (1000 words). Published in Utopia Science Fiction, August 1. Genre: science fiction
Note: Contact if interested in reading
Trans sci-fi / debate competitions / AI as a metaphor
For the first time in seven years, Andre is in the same room as his AI ex-best friend.
Blood Stains True (3300 words). Published in Vampire Hunters: An Incomplete Record of Personal Accounts (Speculation Publications). Genre: historical fantasy/horror
Note: Contact if interested in reading
Historical fantasy / 1500s Venice / trans protagonist
I write now, however, not with concerns that a vampire walks beside me, but with a pressing mythological question—an academic curiosity, you might say. This entire affair has been most unusual, and so I shall start with its beginning, as is usually best for any matter where one pursues the truth.
A Knot for the Hawk (3000 words). Published in Loki (Flame Tree Press), June 8 (UK)/July 22 (US). Genre: fantasy
Note: Contact if interested in reading
Trickery in Asgard / snarky outlook / even gods can be genderfluid
The problem with godly jokes, the ironic reason that perhaps made me such a trickster to begin with, is that they are very difficult to undo.
Through Time and Calamity (750 words). Published in Starship Librarians (Tyche Publishing). Genre: science fiction
Note: Contact if interested in reading
Librarians of the future / queer protagonist / solving the unsolvable
There were three possible paths when facing the application to Aibrani, the cosmos’s premier academy for chronicling not what is, but what used to be.
The most popular path, and the easiest, was to not even try.Blue Wood, Ash Crown (2500 words). Upcoming in Fraidy Cat Quarterly Volume 7: Rage (Fraidy Cat Press). Genre: dark fantasy
Note: Contact if interested in readingFeminist rage / fairytale archetypes turned into revenge / ancient artifactsYou are the final monster, and the stars are bored. They do not wait to reveal your true nature.