Published Work

“The Cold Burning Light of Her,” (read) Lighspeed, Nov. 2025

Tilda stands at a crossroads just outside of town. It’s a place where worlds meet, and the perfect place to create a new person. The crescent moon glimmers through the oaks bent thick along the roadside. The cold-burning stars in the sky hold a sort of magic if you know how to swim in their light. Tilda spits in the dirt, turns a tight circle, and recites the incantation she learned as a child.

“The Riches We Take,” (order) Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Nov/Dec 2025

Clementine hunched over her bowl of stew and turned in her seat to avoid eye contact with Percy Blankencourt. He sat at the bar, glancing over his shoulder, itching to walk over, but she had pushed the other chairs away from her table when she sat down—a clear signal that she wanted no company. So far, it held him off, but it wouldn’t be long.

“A Runaway Bullet Runs Through Our Town,” (read) Blue Lake Review, Nov. 2025

Smetimes it ricochets off the side of a building or pings the hood of a car. I fucking freeze. Like Pavlov’s dog, I can’t help myself. I might catch a burst of sparks at the point of contact, but otherwise, I can’t see the goddamn thing.

“Transubstantiation,” (read) Flash Fiction Online, May 2025

Your love for her transcends hydrogen stars and tidal rhythms; it pushes aside the laws of entropy, reaching around incubators and doctors’ pronouncements. When you brought her home, you asked me to believe—but it’s only by moonlight that I think I can see her. 

“On the Last Day that You Die,” (order) Intergalactic Rejects Anthology, May 2025

That’s when you hear the whine from across the room—from under a table in front of the sofa. A dog, dirt brown and scraggly. Not big but not small either. It follows you with its eyes as if it knows you or, rather, thinks it does. You look like the old man, smell like the old man. 

“Here, boy,” you say with the old man’s voice.

“Gratitude of the Dispossessed,” (read) Phano, June 2025

After three centuries, the Tea Masters once again stand face to face with their creator.Rudimentary emotions spin up from a survival subroutine, no more than electron streams directed to recreate something like fear and loathing. Prime wishes he could slam the door closed again; instead, he responds with his own greeting, not in the machine language native to him, but in a language of man. 

“The Visible Death of Stars,” (read/listen) Vast Chasm Magazine, April 2025

“Analena stepped around the tangle of vines and leaves. For nearly thirty years, she’d tended this garden’s dark and fertile soil. She bent and selected a summer squash, yellow and plump, lying heavy on the earth. Its skin felt hard, ripe. She used her knife with a practiced hand to cut the fruit loose from its vine.”

“Big Bang Enlightenment,” (read) Stupefying Stories, April 28, 2025

Jenny scowls, her foot tapping out the passing moments as if marking my silence. The brochure lies on the table between us. Big Bang, Incorporated. Experience enlightenment. / “This awakening,” she says, “this little mind vacation was supposed to end after a week.” She leans forward, pleading. “Goddammit, Mo. Say something. Argue with me.” / I need no words. The universe and I are one.

“Their Words Like Leaves,” (listen) Tales to Terrify Podcast, #690, April 2025

Carlo stepped into the Weminuche Wilderness looking for peace, but he secretly hoped he’d find his son. Somewhere on this mountain, Ash’s body lay hidden in a boulder crag or buried in a ravine beneath rotting leaves. As he hiked along the trail above Vallecito Creek, he felt like he was walking with a ghost. 

“Breakfast in Tick Tock,” (read) Penumbric Speculative Fiction, April 2025

“Mother lies in a puddle of equations, the puzzles she didn’t solve before she died. Her body drifts apart, like fireflies lifting from a bush, losing that immutable solidity we all found so quirky and out of place.”

“The Last Astronaut,” (order) Cosmic Horror Monthly, Feb 2025

“Daisy’s breathing echoed inside her helmet. She opened her eyes. Saturn hung like a ghost on the horizon, a ringed specter floating against the stars. Somewhere behind that wisp was home. The older she got, the more she missed that world. She had lived on Titan twice as long as she had lived back there, yet she still considered herself an Earthling—a summer sunbather and a proper tree hugger.”

“Adventures in Causality,” (order) Black Cat Weekly #177, Jan 2025

“The gas giant sits on the horizon like some grand inquisitor, its crimson eye looking particularly judgmental. The Honorable Judge Jupiter presiding: Delores Mendoza, why the hell aren’t you on Earth? You have credit scores to evaluate and loan contracts to write.”

“Rocket Boy,” (order) Utopia Science Fiction, Dec 2024

“On the morning of departure, the sky is clear and the weather calm. Our parents and grandparents gather to say goodbye. They’re seated on the back porch drinking coffee and eating cheese Danish. I’m in the pilot seat, with Jennifer seated next to me as the co-pilot. Milo sits just behind us at the navigation panel.”

“House of the Hidden Moon,” (read) Nightmare Magazine, Sept 2024

Read interview with Nightmare HERE.

“That night we lost her,” says Mother, “I was asleep next to your father. You and Lilah were in the other bedroom—you lay tucked into your own bed, and your sister lay in the crib beside you. Your father slept like the dead, and nothing could wake him, but I’ve always drifted in and out of sleep easily. That night, lights flashed at the back of my eyelids, and I woke to a glow crossing the bedroom door and moving down the hallway.”

“Song of Nyx,” (order) Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Jan/Feb 2024

Read Interview with Analog HERE.

You already know the ending—the fading whoops and whistles, the lonely clicks echoing through canyons, the last whale song sinking into bone-rattling dirge. Our ending was never a surprise. Instead, I will tell you about the beginning. Read Tangent review HERE.

“Island of Dolls,” (read) Stupefying Stories, September 23, 2024

Reprint: Originally published in Ghostlore Anthology podcast

Fantasma de la tierra, they would say. Ghost of the earth. Bent trees tangled across the island like charcoal smudges scratched into the land.  It was said that lost souls lived in that wood, twisting the trunks and creaking the branches.

“Doves Fly in the Morning,” (read) Small Wonders, #8, Feb 2024

Reprint: Originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact

“Engineering near-light speed travel felt a hell of a lot easier than saying goodbye. Banjoko leaned deeper into the service port, worked his fingers along the plasma harness as he checked each power cluster.”

“Urban Explorer: Site 1337” (order) Strange Locations Anthology, 2024

The Morris Building, Pueblo, CO

The elevator car is stuck half-way at the third floor, so you’ll have to drop into it, which is creepy as hell because it might slip and cut you in half, right? Just do it. Take a look at the buttons. 

“The Worm’s Twist,” (read) Stupefying Stories, August 1, 2024

Daylight poured into the Oval Office. Sylvia Albright stood at the windows with her eyes closed, sunshine warming her face. For a moment she forgot that the world was falling apart.

“Los Pajaritos,” (order) Magazine of F&SF, Nov/Dec 2023

The heart of a sparrow in flight. Eight hundred beats per minute. An explosion of feathers—coffee and caramel and dusty rose, like the earth itself took wing to flutter and flash. I smiled when you called the sparrow your spirit animal. Such a fragile creature. REVIEW: “And kudos to Sam W. Pisciotta for weaving a whole lot of memory, love and loyalty into such a short story. I was bowled over!” –Andrew Weston Read the full review by Weston HERE. Read the review on SFCrowsnest HERE.

“The Moonlight Eels,” (read) NewMyths.com, Dec 2023

Jenny faced the shadowed trees and bent an ear into the darkness, listening for Pepper’s bark, hoping her pup had holed up in some hollow. She yearned to find that dog, but Mama knew the dangers and held her back.

“How to Say Goodbye,” (read) James Gunn’s Ad Astra, November 2023

“Doctor Perez. Step back into the compound, please.” Two SecGuards motion me towards the perimeter fence. “We’re close to departure, ma’am.” I pause, almost willing to let rules and regulations save me from the pain of saying goodbye.

“The Somnambulant,” (listen/read) PodCastle, #805, September 2023

The moon sits plump within a windowpane as if plucked from the sky and framed for safekeeping. Bound by forces beyond our control, the moon and I share a yearning to pull free. I touch my finger on the icy glass and dream of leaving this place. Listen to the story on PodCastle.

“Morning Glory,” (subscribe) Asimov’s Science Fiction, July/August 2023

READ my interview with Asimov’s HERE.

People can die from a lot of things, but they don’t die from pill bugs. Perl understood this and knew the truth of it. But her fear wasn’t about dying. It was about their ashen, hard-crackle shells splitting beneath her feet; it was about their feathery legs whispering over her skin. Roly-polies made them sound cute, but they weren’t; they were goddamn creepy.

“Words for the Dead,” (order) Spirits and Ghouls Anthology, Sept. 2023

Q&A with Flametree Publishing.

Conall leaned the muskets against a birch and eased his son to the ground. By the time they had reached the boulder field, the moon had taken the sky, its light a pale echo of the sun. Too dark for Conall to check the wound, he reached down and snugged the bandage at his son’s leg.

“The Sky Above Io,” (read) Utopia Science Fiction, April-May 2023

Mother. Starship pilot. Paths I took and paths I didn’t. Most people don’t want to know what might have been. Regret is bearable when it remains vague, but to really see the person you might have become, to walk the path you’d given up—well, that’s scary as hell. All the same, I needed to know.

“Disgruntled,” (read) MetaStellar, December 22, 2022

“Basically, your How-To articles are way too unpredictable. First, your advice killed my husband which, honestly, wasn’t entirely your fault. But then your suggestions resulted in the reanimation of his corpse, and that has led to major issues in our marriage! Okay. *deep breath* I probably need to start from the beginning.”

“Tight Lines,” (read) Factor Four Magazine, December 02, 2022

Fly fishing as a metaphor for first contact with an alien world. “The fly rolls back off the tip of the rod, wisping overhead.” The phrase used for the title, “tight lines,” is a salutation often passed between fishermen.

“Doves Fly in the Morning,” (subscribe) Analog, Nov/Dec 2022 — Read the reprint in Small Wonders here.

“Engineering near-light speed travel felt a hell of a lot easier than saying goodbye. Banjoko leaned deeper into the service port, worked his fingers along the plasma harness as he checked each power cluster. Schematics, circuitry, ship protocol—these he understood; they felt comfortable and safe.” Read Tangent Review Here. SFRevu Here.

“Piano Lessons in the Dark,” (read) Etherea Magazine, Sept. 28, 2022

“The absolute best song for chasing away monsters is Für Elise. They can’t run away fast enough. And the quicker I play, the faster they run. Of course, I’ve gotten good at playing it; my fingers snap over the piano keys—E, D#, E, D#, E, B, D, C, B.”

“Studies in Alchemy,” (order) Wyldblood Magazine, July 20, 2022

Sephtis reached into a flower box thick with dark-red geraniums and plucked a flower that shouldn’t have been there—a single, white chrysanthemum. He weaved through the tables of the open café along the Hudson where small groups of people chatted over their lunches.

“Blue Line on a Winter’s Night,” (read) Factor Four Magazine, July 2022

The only people riding the Blue Line on a night this cold are people trying to stay alive. I almost didn’t make it onto the train before the doors closed, and I doubt I could’ve lasted till the next one arrived. Two coats and a scarf—that shit means nothing in this weather.

“The Settlement at Quelon Bay,” (read) Martian, July 01, 2022

Dad gave his life to see me safe, to get me to this pod headed for the orbiter. Safe from the feathery brutality of the Kohl with their ripping talons and hollow eyes. They arrived after us and wanted it all.

“Island of Dolls,” (listen) Ghostlore Anthology, Part 2–Hauntings, April 01, 2022, The Alternative Stories Podcast, edited by Lyndsey Croal

Fog drifted off the dark waters around Xochimilco. Fantasma de la tierra, they would say. Ghost of the earth. Bent trees tangled across the island like charcoal smudges scratched into the land.  It was said that lost souls lived in that wood, twisting the trunks and creaking the branches.