New Roundtable Discussion at Lambda Literary

I on a super fun Grist and Lambda Literary roundtable with the wonderful Ailbhe Pascal and Anya Markov, where we talked about queer climate fiction and I said wise things like, "Nature is a very gay concept. It just seems like it’s very queer. Just being in nature, being happy, flowers, all of those things – gay, gay, gay."

Check it out here: https://lambdaliteraryreview.org/2024/02/dreaming-up-a-hopeful-future-a-conversation-with-grist-authors-on-queer-climate-fiction/

Some recent news

My story “Pastora, in Blue” is up at Isele Magazine (2023)

I have a very short story (“We, the Sisters Who Live Upstate”) up over at HAD (2023)

“Is the Sky Falling or Are We Rising Towards the Lord?” is up at Fairy Tale Review (2023)

My micro “The Seeds That We Bury, The Fields That We Reap” is up at hex (2023)

My novella The Nuckelavee is out from Alien Buddha Press (2023)

My story “Devil’s Island” from PANK’s Environmental Futures Folio was named a Notable Story in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022

I won something!

I’m honored that my story “The Pioneer” won the fiction prize in the Agnes Scott Writers’ Festival Contest (Agnes Scott College). It was selected as a finalist by the incredible novelist Jen Beagin, and then selected as the winner by former US poet laureate/Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove and award-winning playwright-librettist Jacqueline Goldfinger. Which is just insane.

I’m so thrilled about this, particularly as the story has been printed in the Agnes Scott Writers’ Festival Magazine alongside some of my dearest writer friends, including Paul Cunningham, Nate Dixon, Zack Anderson, Hannah V Warren, and Emma Catherine Perry.

“The Pioneer” is a very gay story about a secret love affair between an astronaut and a cosmonaut on the ISS, and I wrote it as a sort of homage to Jim Shepard’s classic short story “Love and Hydrogen.”

I’m especially thrilled because “The Pioneer” is a standalone chapter from my novel-in-progress, titled The Pioneers, and it’s such a nice acknowledgement that my book is on the right track.

If you have a few minutes, I’d love it if you read the story, which is here: http://writersfestival.magazines.agnesscott.org/fiction/the-pioneer/

New Essay at TechRadar, New Poem at Hobart After Dark (HAD)

I’ve got a couple of new pieces out in the wild and I’m so happy about them. First, my essay “The search for the elusive queer parent in gaming” kicked off TechRadar’s LGBTQ+ Gaming Week, which is such an honor. Read it here: https://www.techradar.com/news/the-search-for-the-elusive-queer-parent-in-gaming

Second, Hobart is one of the first literary magazines I ever read and I’ve been a fan for years. When they launched its quirky sibling, Hobart After Dark, I was desperate to have a piece in it, and so I’m thrilled that they published my sestina/flash fiction/essay/experiment about gay friendship, “Gobliny-Ass-Yaffingales.” Read it here: https://www.havehashad.com/hadposts/gobliny-ass-yaffingales

New Essay at Observer

Hello! The world is awful at the moment, so I distracted myself by spending some time with some queer poetry and art. The fruit of that time is this essay for Observer, which imagines H.D.’s Sea Garden poems in conversation with Paul Cadmus’ painting “Two Boys on a Beach.” Check it out here: https://observer.com/2021/01/an-escape-to-paul-cadmus-and-h-d-s-beautiful-queer-beach/

New Story in BOOTH

Hi friends!

I’ve got a new story - probably my favorite one I’ve ever written - up over at Booth, and I’d love for you to read it! It will be a special treat for those of you that enjoy any of the following: Alaska! Fin whales! Choir practices run amok! Harried librarians! Ancient plagues! Truckers! Alien conspiracies! Extinct species of manatees! Evil possessed children! The swift condemnation of anti-vaxxers!

Please check out “Wild Gods”

New Interview at The Future of Storytelling

If you want/need to take a little break from doom-scrolling, I was interviewed by the Future of Storytelling about my story "The Flotilla at Bird Island" in the short fiction collection Take Us to a Better Place: Stories. We also talk about health equity, writing the future, literary friendship, and more! https://medium.com/future-of-storytelling/q-a-with-author-mike-mcclelland-c8fcf4371de4

New Essay up at Vox's The Goods!

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21422918/best-money-alcoholism-tarot-deck-wild-unknown-archetypes

I've never written about being an alcoholic (though if you've seen me drink this will not come as a shock). I was quiet in part because of embarrassment, and in part because I didn’t think I had much to add to the great writing out there about the disease.

Then this not-quite-tarot deck came into my life, and I just had to share my experience. Friends and mentors also helped me realize that by keeping my drinking life out of my writing life I was allowing alcoholic thinking to lurk in the warm, silent dark.

I never would have found help if I hadn’t had openly alcoholic friends to reach out to for guidance. So consider me open (though I’m very much a work in progress), and please read this essay if you get a minute.

Little piece in THE NEW YORK TIMES!

I’m teaching a course on prose poems this fall so I’ve set myself the goal of writing and publishing more prose poetry. So I wrote my own little version of a prose poem about how Simon and I met, and I’m so thrilled that it’s in The New York Times today. I’ve been a fan of the Modern Love column since it launched and over the years I’ve read some that have actually changed my life, including those by friends like Amy Bonnaffons, Aubrey Hirsch, and Kera Yonker. So being a part of it in a (literally) “tiny” way just such an absolute thrill.

Here it is!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/style/tiny-modern-love-stories-coronavirus-its-ok-if-you-meet-someone.html

Take Us to a Better Place is out now!

So thrilled to share that my story “The Flotilla at Bird Island” appears in an incredible new anthology that you can get for free right here: https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2019/11/take-us-to-a-better-place-stories-coming-january-2020.html

It’s an anthology of short fiction that all considers different ways to improve the health of the world, and features work by some amazing writers and artists! I feel so lucky to have been included.

SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!

Hi friends!

I just returned from beautiful Palm Springs, where I participated in the annual TEDMED conference. This year’s theme was “Chaos + Clarity” - and if you know me you know that is the perfect fit! I had SUCH a good time. I was so inspired by the people there, and I was thrilled to be able to talk about writing with a number of interesting folks and also to read some of my creative work on the TEDMED stage (I’ll share a link when I have one).

I’ve also got some new/recent publication news:

1) “A Feast for Clowns,” a collaboration between my brother Casey and I, has gone live in one of my very favorite journals, DREGINALD: http://dreginald.com/index.php/issues/issue-fifteen/mcclelland

2) My essay “God Eats His Mistakes” is going to be released as part of Entropy’s WOVEN series this coming Wednesday (November 21st). I’ll put a link up then.

3) My story “Forest Mirror” is going to be in NonBinary Review’s 19th issue, which is based around Dante’s The Inferno.

4) The story I presented at TEDMED (which is titled “The Flotilla at Bird Island” will be released this coming spring as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s fiction anthology Take Us to a Better Place. I cannot wait to get my hands on this anthology - it should be so cool!!!!

5) My story “The Boo Hag” was named a semifinalist in the 2019 Saints and Sinners Fiction Contest. This is such a thrill, because some of my favorite writers are also on the list and I’m a HUGE fan of the annual Saints + Sinners Festival!

Thanks so much for reading! <3