Last summer, I went on a trip with my parents to Vancouver Island. It was an epic ten-day road trip. My mom would fly to Seattle, where she’d stay in my apartment for a couple days, then my dad would pick us up in his F-150. We’d take the ferry from Port Angeles, then, with a group of other overlanders, we would drive across the island, camping by lakes and rivers, enjoying the serenity of nature and the challenge of navigating difficult back roads.
The day after my mom arrived in Seattle, she got a text from her brother that her mother, who everyone in the family calls Muz, wasn’t eating. The nursing home where she lives would keep an eye on her, but we should be prepared, just in case her condition got worse.
Concerned but undaunted, my parents and I continued with our plans. We drove to Port Angeles, camped for the night in a provincial park, and set off on our road quest. On our first day, we were driving along the northern shore of Lake Cowichan, looking for a place to camp, when my mom got a phone call from my uncle. Muz had entered a transitory state – the sort where they didn’t expect her to ever come out. If my mother wanted to say goodbye, she had to do it now.
The next day, we drove my mom all the way back to Victoria. She got on the Clipper to Seattle, where she’d spend the night in a hotel and fly to California the next day. My dad and I, still wanting to complete our trip, headed back up-Island to catch up with our group.
Muz died several days later.
* * *
I’m a night person. I always have been. The early-to-bed mentality of the other campers didn’t suit me, so I would often stay awake late at night, sitting by the campfire, drinking a beer and staring at the stars, alone with my thoughts. The night Muz died, I sat by the shore of a lake, gazing at the night sky, feeling a lot of very big feelings. As I turned my head upwards, a meteor so bright it cast shadows streaked across the heavens, seemingly from horizon to horizon. I don’t know what possessed me in that moment to make a wish. But I figured it wouldn’t do any harm.
I wished that I had some sign, no matter how insignificant or small, that my writing career was moving forward. I’ve been writing since middle school and querying my novels for nine years, getting close several times but never quite reaching that next step. After the fire died to embers and I finished my beer, I went back to my tent and fell asleep.
The very next morning, I got an email from Lezli Robyn telling me that my short story, “Tales from the Sub-Ocean: or, Video Game as Metaphor for Mental Illness”, had been nominated for the Mike Resnick Memorial Award.
I didn’t expect that result. I had submitted the story to the contest back in January, fully expecting to get rejected, as all my stories had already been. I am not a superstitious person. I believe in a quantum universe of random chance and coincidence. Yet if there are such things as shooting star wishes, I had no idea that the ROI was so fast.
Now I had decisions to make. I had to get a flight to Atlanta, where the Resnick Award would be presented along with the Dragon Awards at DragonCon, along with a hotel room, a convention pass… I don’t want to say it was overwhelming, but it was definitely a surprise.
“Don’t worry about it,” my dad said. “I know that you can’t afford it, but we’ll get you there. It’s for your writing career. It’s important.” I’m so grateful to him for this gift – this, and so many others.
Five weeks later, I was on a morning flight from Seattle to Atlanta, preparing myself for DragonCon.
* * *
If there’s a polar opposite of a nighttime lakeside in rural Canada, it’s probably DragonCon. The lines, the noise, the colors blaring from the vendor booths, the amazing costumes… There were times my autistic brain couldn’t handle it and I had to calm down the main way I know how: hiding in a corner by the elevators and blasting progressive death metal on my headphones.
Yet despite the overstimulating chaos, it was amazing to meet people in the actual publishing industry, who said that my writing was good and that I had a bright future ahead of me. Even more amazing was meeting my fellow nominees: C.E. Singer, Anaïs Godard, Tara McKee, and Jason Boyd. We shared stories, and theirs were all so amazing that I was sure that I would place something like fifth or sixth in the judges’ estimation. I didn’t care. I’d been rejected so many times that the cliche statement “it’s an honor just to be nominated” was entirely accurate.
Satisfaction is reality divided by expectations, and since my expectations were low, when I heard my name being called as first runner-up, you can guess I was extremely satisfied. I assume there’s video out there of the 2025 Dragon Awards showing me running up to the stage, giving a giant hug to Tara, the second runner-up, then hugging the winner, Anaïs, as she came up the stairs. We gave huge goony grins as we got our picture taken. I’m not sure what the biggest moment of my life was. Hopefully there are a lot bigger moments in my future. I’m just so glad it happened, and that I got to share it with such awesome people and writers.
That night, I took the MARTA back to my hotel, the dopamine rush of the last few hours had faded into a blissful serotonin haze. A thought came to me in that moment. I think I can do this, I thought. I think I can actually be a writer.
The idea of a writing career had always been somewhat hypothetical: a cool dream, but not one that had any tangible reality. Yet as the train sped through the dark, for the first time, I felt genuinely confident. I had been struggling for so long on a journey through territory that never changed no matter how far I struggled, like a thick forest that opposed me at every step. Now I was stepping out of the forest, under a vast, open sky, able to finally see the stars.