Daily writing prompt What's your dream job? View all responses Every year, this question pops up. Every time I start a draft. This year, I'm determined to finish it. Short answer: writing, but making money doing it. Which I guess is where the "job" part comes in. Or like, scratch that, I am technically making money doing it right now.

I write speculative fiction. No, it's more kind of a dystopian thing than that. No, no. Post-dystopian. But it's not like The Walking Dead, it's more... optimistic? Optimistic Post-Dystopian. With queer characters! Can't forget about them. Us. Queer characters. Minorities of all kinds, really, because the point is that We survive. (... right?) My dad died in 2025 from a disease I might inherit, and there are ways to test for it, kind of, sort of.

Much as I wish I could blame a careful arrangement of myself in timespace for all my artistic successes and failures, I've made the unfortunate discovery in recent years that all of that is total bullshit, and that I am capable of writing wherever and whenever, despite all circumstances. Which is a lot of pressure, lemme just say. That being said, I did make this space.

When my mom died, my sister and I inherited a nearly-paid-off house we couldn't afford in a neighborhood we couldn't live in. It was also the house she had just died in, the house she had been sick in, and we were both teenagers. We sold it. Immediately, we said we wanted to sell. The remaining adults handled it, quick and quiet.

Discover compelling narratives in our journals. Read stories and poems that reflect life's journeys. Free access to current and past issues.