Get a free story when you subscribe

Author, Editor, Media Tie-In Writer

Remembering Jay

Writer Advice
June 1, 2014

I do not want to read this on Tor.com. I do not want to write this about Jay. I don’t. I really don’t. But I have no choice. Jay is dead.

He wrote for me. My first anthology, Grants Pass, when I was nothing and no one. He wrote for me every single time I asked him to. For the Edge of Propinquity. For small press anthologies and large.

He was my mentor for years before I published his non-fiction book, Jay Lake’s Process of Writing. We talked by phone, by Skype, and at conventions. He was generous with his time and his advice. It was this wealth of knowledge that led me to ask him if AIP could publish a non-fiction book. It was then I learned so much more from him.

I can’t help but feel for his family, Bronwyn, Lisa, and the rest of those family members—by choice and blood—whose names I just can’t remember though the tears.

All I can remember is how good he was to me and how much I’m going to miss him.

Radcon 2009 – Not the first time I met him in person but close to.

JayWake 2013

Meet Jennifer Brozek

Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her YA tie-in novels, BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident and Shadowrun: Auditions, have both won Scribe Awards. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Hugo Award. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer’s short form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, Well World, and Predator.

Jennifer has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years, and she has never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to teach writing classes and volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or her social media accounts on LinkTree.

Latest Releases

A book cover showing multiple characters including a troll and dwarf and others

The cover for mosaic run, showing two girls running between racks of servers being shot at by a flying drone.

Cover image showing 4 separate combined images of shadowruns.

Browse the archives

You may also like...

A Month of Decluttering

kitties, decluttering
February 1, 2019

It’s been a month since I started decluttering, cleaning, and organizing my house in earnest. I’ve completed round one of the upstairs. I’m keeping a weekly blog post for the good, the bad, and the emotional. Just so I can remember it all. I know there will be a round two. I’m just not exactly sure when. I think decluttering the downstairs is going to go slower because it’s not just my stuff. I’m going to need more of the Husband’s input. One of the things I didn’t expect was how much the decluttering would be so emotional and so full of mental landmines. A lot of pictures (and duplicates of pictures) that brought back unhappy memories. I spent a lot of my late 20s and early 30s very lonely and depressed and hiding it (successfully) from everyone—even from myself—a lot of the time. The increased joy in my late...

Saner Thoughts on the Bram Stoker Preliminary Ballot

awards, Permuted
January 21, 2016

From last night: I’m stupidly excited I’ve been listed twice on the 2015 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot! Once for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection for Apocalypse Girl Dreaming and once for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel for Never Let Me Sleep. Now that the excitement of being listed twice on the 2015 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot has died down, I can look at what this really means. The preliminary ballot is not an official nomination. That will come after the active and lifetime members of the HWA vote. I won’t know until Feb 23rd if I’m officially nominated or not. In the meantime, I can enjoy being that much closer to the award. Also, I can enjoy the success of my friends and peers. In particular, I am super happy for Seanan McGuire who has been listed in the Long Form category for her spectacular...