Short Stories
“Brincando Charcos (Jumping Puddles),” Strange Horizons, Caribbean SFF Special Edition, edited by Marika Bailey and Suzan Palumbo, October 30, 2023.
“Two People,” Indiana Review Vol. 44, #2, Winter 2023. Winner of the 2022 Indiana Review Fiction Prize, judged by K-Ming Chang.
“Two People” is wondrous and strange, as slippery and mysterious as an underwater creature. It’s stunningly attuned to the elusiveness of intimacy, belonging, and desire. It explores the multiplicity of selfhood and the limitations/expansive possibilities of being known (and of knowing oneself). This story is captivating and uncanny, philosophical and funny, meditative and urgent: in short, as multifaceted as existence itself. I read it with rapture and awe. There’s a description of a beast that moves with “sacred beauty,” and this story is an embodiment of those words. It’s pure alchemy, written with precision and pulsing with life, and I was completely submerged inside its language. Readers will come out of it entranced and transformed.
-K-Ming Chang, Author of Bestiary
“The After Party,” It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility, edited by Isabela Oliveira and Jed Sabin, Speculatively Queer Press, July 2021.
“Aging Elements,” Fireside, April 2019.
“The Fermi Paradox,” From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction, edited by Charles Rice-Gonzalez and Charlie Vazquez, Tincture Press, August 2011. Reprinted in Best Gay Stories, an annual anthology of the year’s best gay fiction published by Lethe Press, Fall 2012.
“Crepuscular,” Shimmer #12, Autumn 2010.
- Reviewed by Sam Tomaino in SFRevu: “Jessica and her boyfriend Roger see the world differently. She is obsessed with charts and spreadsheets. He likes to build snowmen. When he builds one he called Monsieur Frosty, she wants it to just melt and Roger gets angry and leaves. Monsieur Frosty works his Gaullic charm on her and melts her heart. She and Roger go on a quest for Monsieur Frosty in an utterly charming fantasy.”
“This is Not Concrete,” Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #25, April 2010.
“On the Entropy of Species,” The Tangled Bank: Love, Wonder, and Evolution, edited by Chris Lynch, February 2010.
“Tío Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts,” Realms of Fantasy, October 2009.
- Reprinted in Wilde Stories 2010, an annual anthology of the year’s best gay speculative fiction published by Lethe Press (Fall 2010).
- Featured in io9.com‘s Weekend Short Story Club.
- Reprinted online on the Realms of Fantasy web site, May 2010.
- Reprinted in podcast form in Podcastle 86, January 12, 2010.
- Reviewed in IROSF: “Light humored tale of the importance of human connections, with a memorable character in Gilberto. Recommended.”
“This is My Blood,” co-written with Chris Lynch, Dreaming Again anthology, edited by Jack Dann, Harper Collins/Eos, 2008.
- Honorable Mention, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, June 2009.
- Reviewed in The Australian: “Dreaming Again is chock-full of entertaining and thought-provoking short fiction. My favourite story is by new authors Ben Francisco and Chris Lynch: This is My Blood mixes a powerful combination of human religion, alien culture and first contact on an unknown planet in the distant future.”
Reviews, Lists, and Other Fun Nonfiction
“How to Find a Writing Group–or Start Your Own!” A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2011, Small Beer Press, October 2010.
“Battle of the Comic Book Mega-Crossovers: Final Crisis vs. Secret Invasion,” Fantasy Magazine, Feb. 12, 2009.
“The New Year in Speculative Fiction: The 2009 of Our Past Imaginations,” Fantasy Magazine, Jan 14, 2009.
“Top 12 Latino Superheroes,” Fantasy Magazine, Nov. 5, 2008.