Sam J. Miller's Blog

How cool is this??!? The National Building Museum is hosting “In Pursuit of Healthy & Equitable Cities” 2/12 – using my novel BLACKFISH CITY as a springboard! The event launches the Museum’s season of NEA Big Read programs, featuring my book as the Museum’s 2025 selection. (??!?!?!)

Come through, DC! Click here to register. It’s free, and there are free copies of the book for all attendees (while supplies last)!

February 12 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Mayor Alyia Gaskins of Alexandria, Virginia, Anna McCorvey, senior equitable development manager for the 11th Street Bridge Park, and Sam J. Miller, author of Blackfish City, will come together for a conversation on how communities can build healthier, more equitable cities, now and in the future. Emily Badger, urban policy reporter for The New York Times, will moderate the discussion. 

The panelists will explore how policy, design, and imagination can shape cities that support wellbeing, resilience, and equity, highlighting current initiatives including waterfront resilience in Alexandria and community-centered programs connected to the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, DC. 

Attendees can receive a free copy of Blackfish City, while supplies last.

Program Schedule  

5:30 pm  Doors Open  

6 pm  Program Starts  

7:30 pm  Light Reception  

8 pm  Close

About the Speakers  

Mayor Alyia Gaskins  

Mayor Alyia Gaskins, the first African American woman to serve as Mayor of Alexandria, is a champion for health equity, thriving families, and resilient communities. With a background in public health and urban planning, she brings deep experience in housing, homelessness, and community investment to her leadership. She continues this mission through her consulting practice, CitiesRX, which focuses on building healthier, more equitable cities.  

Anna McCorvey  

Anna McCorvey is a DC-based architect and the Senior Equitable Development Manager for the 11th Street Bridge Park, a project of Building Bridges Across the River, where she works to ensure longtime residents can thrive in place. Her career spans affordable housing, schools, and public-interest design, driven by a belief in the power of design to shape lives for the better.  

Sam J. Miller  

Based in New York City, Sam J. Miller an award-winning speculative fiction author whose work often explores themes of community, climate, and justice, including the acclaimed novel Blackfish City. Miller blends imaginative world-building with urgent social questions. His storytelling invites audiences to consider bold, transformative futures for our cities. 

Emily Badger  

Emily Badger is a reporter for The New York Times, where she writes about cities and urban policy for The Upshot. She’s particularly interested in housing, transportation, and inequality — and how they’re all connected. And she often works on stories that leverage data analysis and visualization to help readers understand complex subjects in the built environment like zoning, segregation and transit access. She joined the Times in 2016 from The Washington Post and is based in Washington, D.C.  

This event launches the Museum’s season of Big Read programs, featuring Blackfish City as the Museum’s 2025 selection. Generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Midwest, the Big Read broadens our understanding of the world, our communities, and ourselves through the shared experience of reading and discussing a single book. 

Welcome to the other side of the threshold, fellow time travelers.

We’ve crossed over into 2026. A blank slate. Right? New beginnings, new chances, new resolutions.

Never mind that the Death Cult steering this ship is trotting out the same old nightmare scenarios, that war and hate and hunger and genocide still loom large. We will cling to hope, to power, to the belief that we can help shape a future that averts apocalypse.

One of the things I genuinely love about January is the chance to look back at all the great writing I consumed in the previous year. And this year I am excited to revisit an old tradition of mine: a round-up of “My Life in Fiction” – annual highlights as a reader and as a writer.

I read so much great stuff in 2025!! Not nearly as much as I wanted to – it’s never enough – but tons of excellence. I’m excited to shout out some of those stories.

First, though, I’ll talk about the two published things I’m proudest of, from 2025. “For your consideration,” as they say, in case you’re filling out an award ballot and have a couple empty slots

Originally published in Nightmare Magazine, this horror story is rooted my rage at the way the world is treating trans and nonbinary folks. People have said it’s an “absolute banger,” “full of beautiful queer rage,” “equal parts chilling and beautiful,” with “angry ghosts who are sick of humanity’s bullshit” – and “the best drag name ever?… yes, obviously”

Read it here.

Published as a “Saga Double” with APPREHENSION by Mary Robinette Kowal, my fifth novel was an instant USA Today bestseller!! People said it was “fast and punchy, full of action and intrigue,” “just the gay-as-fuck vibe I needed,” “a nail-biting ride,” “powerful, thoughtful, and propulsive,” and “the kind of queer chaotic energy only Sam J. Miller can deliver.”

Get your copy.

As always, I so so appreciate you for reading.

Now, on to the stuff I loved as a reader.

I have to say, up top – I don’t know what it says about me, or the world, that my two favorite stories of the year – “Ichthyosis” and “Nacre” – were raw wild aching screaming cries of pain and grief. With water monsters.

“Ichthyosis,” by M.L. Krishnan, in Psychopomp. I said it on Bluesky and I’ll say it again. This story breaks all the right rules for all the right reasons. Proof that if you’re a phenomenally skilled writer, you can just give me intense vivid emotion so compelling I won’t mind if it’s missing some of the things we are taught are “essential” to storytelling.

“Nacre,” by E. Catherine Tobler, in Three-Lobed Burning Eye. Ouch. Wow. This one hurt. It hurt so fucking good. One of the best speculative looks at grief I’ve ever read. Just as its protagonist undergoes an unimaginable transformation, this story transmutes incredible pain into astonishing beauty.

“The Husband,” by P.C. Verrone, in Podcastle #874. I’ve been a big fan of P.C. Verrone since reading “A Review of Slime Tutorial: The Musical” in the fantastic anthology Elemental Forces (both worth hunting down and devouring), and this story bit me hard and sucked me dry with its queer twisted horny hunger.

“Corporate Policy,” by Eden Royce, in Psychopomp. A fabulous short story told in corporate memos and group chats!! And it’s funny! And it’s fucked up.

What a great year for Psychopomp!!

“The Heart is Hungry Above All Things,” by Avra Margariti, in Three-Lobed Burning Eye. This somehow feels like something I’ve never read before, AND something that cleaves to the very heart of what speculative fiction can accomplish, how it can help us understand the harrowing world we inhabit. Also it has sentences like: “And that is our first memory, and our first glimpse of the burden we call brother.”

What a wonderful year for Three-Lobed Burning Eye!

“Into Duty, Into Longing, Into Sparrows” by Somto Ihezue, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I have yet to be disappointed by a Somto Ihezue story, and this one took the fantastic narrative craft and the vivid human emotion and the incantatory prose to a whole new level.

“Blanquitos” by Karlo Yeager Rodriguez, in Typebar Magazine. Another short story writer who rarely fails to knock it out of the park, Karlo delivered a fantastic piece this year – there are monsters here, but presented in such a lovely understated way that it does a great job of asking one of my favorite questions: when weighed against U.S. imperialism, are eldritch abominations really so scary?

“The Flaming Embusen,” by Tade Thompson, in Uncanny Magazine. Tade always finds new ways to hit me right in the feels; this one did so by pairing the wide-eyed technological sense of wonder that characterizes the foundational classics of the genre with the grim stoic cynicism (flimsy armor for a broken heart) of the best vintage noir.

“Written on the Subway Walls,” by Jennifer Hudak, in The Sunday Morning Transport. A couple of years ago, at the World Fantasy Convention, on the final day, when I asked folks what the highlight of their con weekend was, multiple people said “Jennifer Hudak’s reading,” which would be impressive under any circumstances – but was especially astonishing given how many incredible famous rock star writers gave readings at the event. Jennifer Hudak’s writing, when I’ve sought it out since then, delivers on that promise – and nowhere more so than in this lovely haunting story narrated by a subway tunnel. Possibly. Or is it an entire gorgeous forgotten powerful city?

“The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For,” by Cameron Reed, on Reactor. I mean COME ON, look at that title!! And the story lives up to that high bar. Corporate dystopia + worldbuilding I’ve never seen before + rad trans protagonist + clones + high-stakes pulse-pounding action + + + so much other awesome stuff…

“A Tall Glass of Water,” by Xochilt Avila, in Night Shades. Fiction that truly goes by all in a flash, but so fucking fantastic – it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s hot, it hurts.

“To Access Seven Obelisks Press Enter,” by V.M. Ayala, in Lightspeed. My favorite thing – queer horniness as force for revolutionary transformation! The excellent worldbuilding and powerful characterization are just extra olives in the martini that is this brilliant story.

I regret to inform that I read hardly any 2025 novels in 2025. Some fabulous 2026 stuff that I was honored to be asked to blurb – some of which is so fucking fantastic I can’t wait for it to be out so I can start squeeing about it on every street corner, like SUBLIMATION by Isabel J. Kim and MUÑECA by Cynthia Gomez – and a lot of older stuff – neither of which, sadly are helpful to y’all if you’re looking for things to read to fill an awards ballot out.

Alas, I am all too aware that this is the tip of the iceberg, that there is so much more magnificent fiction in so many excellent outlets that I totally missed! So, like lots of the protagonists of these stories, I will let glorious hunger lead me through the year to come – even though I know I can never read ALL THE THINGS, and thus can never truly be satiated.

May we all stay hungry – for justice, and for stories.

Wow wow wow – RED STAR HUSTLE / APPREHENSION became an instant USA Today bestseller, making the list in its debut week!!

The news came while Mary Robinette Kowal and I were neck-deep in an incredible tour to promote our Saga Double, which was an incredible and overwhelming whirlwind of events – nine cities, eight flights, twelve days – and I am still trying to process everything that happened. And catch up on sleep. Both will probably take me a while. But when I do, I will hopefully have more coherent meaningful thoughts to share.

For now, all I can say is – making this bestseller list is a first for me, and I’m deeply moved and grateful to all the excellent folks who bought copies and came out to our book tour events. THANK YOU!

I’ve been so deep in book promo land that I almost forgot: I have a new short story out!!

This one is horror, and like a lot of horror it comes from a particularly dark place deep inside me. Specifically: my rage at the way the world is treating trans and nonbinary folks and drag queens and anyone else who transgresses along the edge of gender.

It’s called Courtney Lovecraft’s Book of the Dead, and published in Nightmare Magazine. You can read the story for free online…

Courtney Lovecraft will be the first one to tell you—she’s an old-school, old-ass drag queen, and she does old-school drag. Her makeup is caked-on, dramatic and impeccable—the evil queen from a Disney cartoon made flesh. Her performances are offensive. She lip syncs torch songs. She’s not on TikTok, and she’s never done a clapback video. She’s never sent in an audition reel for a reality television drag competition.

and then check out this interview with me about it!

Watching the way the world has been going to hell lately, and the way that drag queens and trans folks have been used as wedge issues and boogeymen to scare people into voting against their own self-interest, I realized that Courtney Lovecraft had to be someone who came from that lineage of fierce radical freedom-fighter artists… In an interview, the iconic drag queen Sasha Colby said something like—drag for her was a tool to empower people who had been disempowered. And that sparked the essence of Courtney’s character and her journey.

This one spent a long time percolating. Seventeen years, to be precise – from the time the title first came to me to the time I was ready to start actually writing it. Seventeen years of inchoate rage condensing into something (slightly) more choate.

I hope you think it’s worth the wait. I know I do.

Less than a month until RED STAR HUSTLE / APPREHENSION drops, and I’m excited to announce that Mary Robinette Kowal and I will be hitting the road together!

Full tour dates are below. I’ll keep this page updated with live links as we get them, but for now – check out where and when we’ll be, and pencil us in to your calendars if you can! Many events will have options to attend virtually; follow the links for more info.

SAVE THE DATE(S), we’d love to see you.

I have a new short story entitled “WHAT DOES JOY LOOK LIKE,” included in WE WILL RISE AGAIN: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance and Hope.

The anthology will be published by Saga Press on December 2nd, but you can preorder the collection now!

From genre luminaries, esteemed organizers, and exciting new voices in fiction, an anthology of stories, essays, and interviews that offer transformative visions of the future, fantastical alternate worlds, and inspiration for the social justice movements of tomorrow.

In this collection, editors Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older champion realistic, progressive social change using the speculative stories of writers across the world. Exploring topics ranging from disability justice and environmental activism to community care and collective worldbuilding, these imaginative pieces from writers such as NK Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders, Alejandro Heredia, Sam J. Miller, Nisi Shawl, and Sabrina Vourvoulias center solidarity, empathy, hope, joy, and creativity.

Each story is grounded within a broader sociopolitical framework using essays and interviews from movement leaders, including adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, charting the future history of protest, revolutions, and resistance with the same zeal for accuracy that speculative writers normally bring to science and technology. Using the vehicle of ambitious storytelling, We Will Rise Again offers effective tools for organizing, an unflinching interrogation of the status quo, and a blueprint for prefiguring a different world.

Lit Hub just dropped their list of the 33 most highly-anticipated science fiction fantasy / horror books of the rest of 2025, and I was super excited to see RED STAR HUSTLE / APPREHENSION on there! Here’s what they had to say:

Mary Robinette Kowal / Sam J. Miller, Apprehension / Red Star Hustle
S&S / Saga Press, October 21

I’m loving Saga’s decision to revive the old Ace Doubles format this year (following, it should be noted, in the footsteps of the fabulous Tenebrous Press Split Scream series—and, I suppose, Catherine Lacey’s The Möbius Book, although that’s kinda different)—the first was a Stephen Graham Jones double-header, then a Day/Night-themed Ellen Datlow-edited story collection, but this is where the rubber should meet the road for the format: two brand new novellas from absolute SF stars. I can’t wait to read them both, and to flip the book in-between! –DB

I know what you’re thinking! The world doesn’t need another author newsletter.

Don’t get me wrong – I love them, and I subscribe to TONS of them, but I couldn’t find anything meaningful or special that *I* could contribute.

And while I may not be able to write a newsletter, I CAN write an okay science-fiction story, and that’s what Undercover in the Apocalypse is. An ongoing narrative in installments, addressed to an army of shadow operatives, artists and warriors undercover in a hellscape. A field guide for writers who find themselves trapped behind enemy lines, struggling to make meaningful art amid what feels a lot like an apocalypse.

For you see, Sam J. Miller has come unstuck in time. He burns like screaming neon through the toxic spiraling labyrinth of spacetime. He frolics in post-human forests where ecstatic green has taken back the planet, and in the belly of smoke-stinking industrial hellscape futures. He rides dinosaurs. He issues dire warnings on fifties street corners.

This is not a newsletter.

When I was lucky enough to teach at the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer’s Workshop, I realized that while I don’t have all the answers – I DO have all the questions . I’ve grappled with the same challenges so many writers are up against, trying to create meaningful art in a time and a space where art isn’t valued, where the end of the world feels extremely fucking nigh. Whatever’s stumping you or holding you back, I have probably had to figure out my own solution, and I might be able to help you do the same.

Okay YES it’s totally a newsletter.

It’ll have news and updates and events. All that stuff. But it’s also a work of speculative fiction, a story spoken directly to artists and activists making art (and change) in a dystopian future where it feels like all is lost. If you’re trapped in the same nightmare dystopia as me, I hope you’ll opt into a story that centers hope and creativity and resistance and community.

I’m a winner, baby! The French translation of KID WOLF AND KRAKEN BOY took home the ActuSF Award for Alternate History! I wrote a book about how two men in 1929 daring to love each other could change the course of history, and I’m profoundly moved that it resonated with the award jury.

And I am so grateful to my French publisher Le Bélial’, and my incredible translator Michel Pagel!

This award goes out to all the people who lovingly (& not so lovingly ) called me out for the doomed queer love stories in my previous work, & challenged me to write something unapologetically joyful. As a reader & a writer I love a heartbreak tale, but joy and hope are ALSO essential.

And bien sur it goes out to my magnificent husband, who taught me all I know about how love can change the world.

I was interviewed for episode thirteen of the awesome podcast Futureverse!! According to the episode summary:

In this episode of Futureverse, Molly Wood and Ramanan Raghavendran sit down with acclaimed author Sam J. Miller. They explore themes of dystopia, activism, and the intersection of technology and nature while reflecting on the realities of marginalized communities, the impact of AI governance, and the hopeful resilience of people in the face of adversity.

And I had a full fanboy moment halfway through when I realized that I was being interviewed by the same Molly Wood, who I’ve admired since CNET’s “Buzz Out Loud” podcast circa 2005 ish!!