Afterword by Samantha Mills

I grew up laser focused on novels. I wrote middle grade books in junior high, hilariously long urban fantasy novels in high school (I misunderstood word count versus page count, whoops), and then books of steadily improving quality after college. Short stories did not come naturally to me. My early attempts were more like long novel scenes than anything else, and they received polite rejections along the lines of, “this was well written but it didn’t go anywhere.” I finally sold a story for a dollar in 2009, and I was so excited that I asked for it in cash so I could frame it. I wrote a few more stories for low-or-no-paying markets and then fizzled out, unsure how to improve. I went back to writing books.

Fast forward to 2015. I decided to try again. I wrote a few short stories and didn’t know where to send them, so I put them away and wrote another book. Fast forward to 2017. I was about to start querying agents, and I decided this was it, I was going to learn how short stories worked (for real this time!) while I waited for responses. Two of my old drafts were salvageable (“Adrianna in Pomegranate” and “One Part Per Billion”) so I edited those up. I read. A lot. And something clicked. My next two stories were “Anchorage” and “Strange Waters,” at which point it finally felt like I kind of knew what I was doing. “Strange Waters” ushered in my first longlist, my first best-of collection, and my first foray into the online writing community. “Anchorage” became my first appearance in Uncanny Magazine in 2020, which opened the door for me to submit “Rabbit Test” a few days late and over word count for their 2022 window, which launched the whirlwind of awards and translations that made this collection possible.

These thirteen stories represent Phase One of Sam Getting Serious, my favorites out of my work so far. I’ve slowed down recently to focus on books, but when the short story bug strikes again, I’ll be back for Phase Two.

Samantha Mills
San Diego