Breaking In: January/February 2026

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The Age of Calamities

(Short speculative fiction, January, Henry Holt & Co.)

“A genre-bending story collection where historical figures are yanked into the modern day, turned into ghosts, embroiled in mysteries, and otherwise taken out of their familiar environments.”

Writes from: Toronto.

Pre-Calamities: I thought I was working on my first collection, a mash-up of genre and diaspora fiction, featuring teenage cults, ghosts who live in telephone wires, and hijabi whiz kids. I’d started polishing and selling these stories to magazines when the idea for The Age of Calamities crept into my head and wouldn’t go away.

Time frame: I wrote the stories on and off between 2018–2023, including four stories that never made it into the collection. Some, like “Choose Your Own Apocalypse,” took the entire five-year span to write, with big blocks of time in between drafts. There was also a lot going on in the world during that period (understatement) and in my own life (understatement), and I’m sure that added more time to the process. 

Enter the agent: I was lucky enough to have a few agents contact me after reading short stories of mine somewhere. One of those agents was Alexa Stark, who read “Let’s Play Dead” in The Paris Review and reached out with a lovely note. It took me two more years to approach her and others with a finished-ish draft of the collection.   

Biggest surprise: It took me such a long time to discover the pleasures of revisions, and I’m surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed drawing on editors’ notes to revise the work. The editors (both the book’s editor, Caroline Zancan, and magazine editors like Hasan Altaf) met the strangeness of these stories head-on, and their feedback was invaluable in clarifying each story’s intentions.

What I did right: Trying to sell short stories probably cultivated some level of weary doggedness. But I’m keenly aware that the dividing line between a writer who has broken in and who hasn’t is more ephemeral than it seems. It helps to separate rejection in the industry from an objective statement on the quality of your work, which feels even truer now that I’ve sat on juries and panels myself. Sometimes it means the writing isn’t ready, yes, but sometimes it actually means that the competition is fierce and the process is subjective.

What I would have done differently: Maybe I’d travel back in time and tell myself as a kid: You’re not going to be one of those superstar teenage novelists, and that’s OK.

Did you have a platform in place?: I’m not on social media, but readers have found me through short stories in magazines and anthologies. I’m so, so appreciative of anyone who’s read the stories or written about them or taught them. On a few occasions, I’ve been invited to classroom discussions via Zoom, and I always try to make time for those. And the Holt team has been exceptional in their marketing and publicity efforts.

Advice for writers: It helps to locate the things that bring you back to the page and to nourish them as much as you can. Time and distance are so useful when you’re trying to assess a draft with care. Take all writing advice with a grain of salt!

Next up: A novel with Holt! I’m knee-deep in writing Eleanor Is the Cruelest Month, about a town haunted by the many ghosts of a teenage girl.

Website: Senaa-Ahmad.com

The Poet Empress

(Adult fantasy, January, Bramble)

Writes from: Seattle.

Pre-Empress: Before The Poet Empress, there were eight discarded manuscripts, written over more than a decade. My ninth book is the first to be published. I will say that though the books that came before were all sci-fi or fantasy, The Poet Empress is vastly different from all the others, so much so that writing it surprised me. I just didn’t think I wrote that kind of story. It’s far more grounded and sincere, and far, far more dark.

Time frame: I wrote the first four chapters of the book (7,000 words) all in one evening, which made it to publication almost as-is. I’ve never been able to reproduce this efficiency—drafting the rest of the book took a slow and arduous year—but in the beginning, the book truly felt like a gift, a story that demanded to be told.

Enter the agent: My agent, Jennifer Azantian, discovered the manuscript during an online pitching event called DVPit. She invited me to query her after seeing my short pitch, which I’ve attached below:

Biggest surprise: After I finished The Poet Empress, I knew it was the best book I’d ever written on a craft level. I was immensely proud of how the threads tied together, of all the ways the story was “familiar but different,” of nailing the “surprising but inevitable” ending. But I wasn’t hopeful it would do well commercially, because it was very culturally-rooted and very dark.

In fact, after I sent off queries to agents, I immediately began writing a new book I thought would do better in the market.

That The Poet Empress ended up being the break-in book was probably the biggest surprise.

Within 48 hours of going on submission, we had an Italian translation offer—and within a week, we knew it was going to auction in North America, the UK, and Germany. The outpouring of support for this very Chinese and very messed-up book of my heart was like nothing my agent or I have seen before. I’m grateful for everyone who believed in this book and saw its value, especially my agent Jennifer and the team at Bramble.

What I did right: The corollary of my previous answer, I think, is that people can tell when you write from the heart. I think being personal, and vulnerable, and reaching in for a story that only you can write may end up making the difference.

What I would have done differently: Sometimes I wonder where my career would be if I had tried to publish those eight discarded manuscripts. I don’t think I’d be able to publish them anymore—they’re just tonally so different from the debut, and I’m a much better writer now than when I was writing them—but if I had been brave enough to send them out, would they would be floating in the world somewhere instead of sitting forgotten in my laptop? I am still fond of those stories, and in the perfect world, they would also be books.

But it’s not truly a regret. Because probably The Poet Empress wouldn’t have happened if my career had begun earlier. I would be a different person, and thus a different writer.

Did you have a platform in place?: I didn’t have a platform then, but I’m just now getting started with Instagram! You can find me @storygoose.

Advice for writers: Read a lot, across all genres, even ones you’re not writing in. You’ll gather the best parts of everything.

Next up: I’m currently drafting a second book for Bramble, a standalone fantasy about a love that spans multiple lifetimes. I’m very excited about it. In many ways, it’s a more hopeful answer to The Poet Empress.

Website: ShenTao.ca

For Human Use

(Rom-com horror, February, Run For It)

“A rising star in a venture capital fund becomes unhinged by the firm’s latest investment—a dating app for dead bodies. Soon, everyone around him insists that dating a dead body only sounds weird until you try it.”

Writes from: Manhattan.

Pre-Human: I’ve always been making work as a photographer and artist and, in that sense, I was comfortable as a storyteller, but before writing this book, I never attempted to fiction of any kind.

It wasn’t until my boyfriend (now my husband) had heard about Sackett Street Writers in Brooklyn, and suggested I take a class on the same night he had his poker game. He loved my hot takes on the world and wanted me to do something with them. He spotted the writer in me and I’m not sure why I never found it on my own.

Time frame: I started in early 2018, and I finally compiled a polished first draft in spring of 2022, when I was 40 weeks pregnant with my first son. I’ll never forget it; I was in the gorgeous main reading room of the New York Public Library when I compiled all the chapters. It was 800 pages. I wanted to cry. I had deluded myself into thinking I would start the query process a few months after having the baby, but now I knew I’d have to spend who knows how long editing it down.

It all worked out, though. For me, post-partum was actually a great time to edit. I was exhausted and hormonal, but I loved my new baby more than I could ever love the book, so all of a sudden, deleting whole chapters and story lines got easier. If something wasn’t fun enough to entice me in that state, I got rid of it.

Enter the agent: I’m represented by Pam Gruber of The High Line Literary Collective.

I was getting nowhere with the query process. Everything changed when I found the Writing Day Workshops, which are a great set of conferences where you pay for a ten-minute Zoom with different agents. Like speed dating! Seeing how your pitch lands with agents started to change how I drafted the query. I started getting a lot of requests for pages, and after about 20 pitches, I connected with Pam.

Biggest surprise: Everything. I’m new to all of it. Honestly, I think being naive has helped. A writer’s job is the manuscript; it’s OK to not be an expert on all the background machinery.

What I did right: My arts practice prepared me well for the idea that you have to put everything in to project, and maybe work on it for years, without any expectation that it will be recognized by a wider audience.

I’ve met people who are preoccupied with making work that they believe will connect with an agent or publisher, etc. It’s easy to forget the first rule of making art—the ideas must be deeply personal, and expressing them has to give you some kind of relief.

What I would have done differently: I’m superstitious, so I wouldn’t do anything differently! But I do tell friends to really ask themselves why they’re submitting to contests. Contests kept me focused on the parts of manuscript that were working, but they distracted me from finishing and dealing with the parts that weren’t working. And waiting to hear back became an excuse not to make big changes.

Did you have a platform in place?: I’m grateful that Orbit took on this manuscript without caring that I have zero online presence. If you suspect you have an unwritten novel inside you, dropping all social media is probably the fastest way to get it out. That said, some authors are geniuses at managing their platforms, I’m just not one of them.

I do have a link to collect emails to keep people updated on the book.

Advice for writers: Dignity is way overrated. Be honest and share your writing with people.

Also, when I have writer’s block, it’s because I’m not obsessed with what I’m reading. If I’m really into a book, my mind goes places I could have never gotten to on my own. Donate that book you’ve been “meaning to finish.” Lie your way through book club just to get it off your nightstand, because unless you’re counting the seconds until you can get home and read it, it’s a subconscious drag on your writing too.

Next up: I’m working on a new book, though it’s arriving in fragments. I’m excited to get back with my writer’s group and piece it all together.

Website: SarahGPierce.com