e. m. kerkman

Hello everyone! I’m back with some very exciting news which, if you couldn’t guess from the header, is that I was named First Runner-Up in this year’s Dell Award. The grand prize winner is none other than my friend Liam Betts, who came in second to me last year, and I could not be more excited for him! His writing is phenomenal, and you should all put that name in your mental file of authors to watch. He doesn’t have any writing social media, otherwise I’d link it here.

So, this year’s winning story of mine is titled Black Gold, and is set on a far-future apocalyptic Earth that’s populated only by the robots we humans left behind. This future world is undergoing a second apocalypse, however, and the story follows one of these robots as he attempts to create meaning and purpose in his life while grappling with his changing reality. The entire piece is a commentary about breaking damaging cycles while staying true to oneself, and about how one’s circumstances can affect how we grow and change.

Now, I would post an excerpt of it here, then make it available on my blog as I’ve done with a few of my other stories, except I can’t. The reasons for this are the same as why Lolo’s Last Run, my Dell Award-Winning story from last year, is still unavailable to the public. I can’t say much about either of them yet, but, come September, you’ll all find out why!

And, for anyone interested, I will be at ICFA again this year! I’ll only be there for the first three days, though, so if you’d like to come say hi, send me an email!

Thanks for following along this writing journey with me, and, as always, stay awesome!