Val Vega makes an epic debut 🚀
It’s almost my birthday here in Australia—a birthday I share, give or take a few time-zones—with an incredible Brooklyn-based sci-fi writer named Ben Fransisco. I first met Ben at Clarion South back in 2007, where be blew me away with a series of delicate, nuanced short stories that found homes in magazines like the Realms of Fantasy, Shimmer, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Ben’s stories are extraordinary, even more so because they’re rare. Precious glimpses of an extraordinary talent which appear every couple of years, then disappear beneath the weight of Ben’s other life where he worked for high-profile non-profits advocating for LGBTQ rights and immigrant rights. He’s legitimately one of those people who changes the world for the better, which makes it really hard to begrudge his job pulling him away from writing. Hard, but not impossible. I’m an unreasonable man who always wishes his favourite writers would produce more work. Which is why the recent release of this book made me
