Emily Hockaday

New York

Senior Managing Editor at ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact

Senior Managing Editor at Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

IN A BODY @harbor_review Oct 2023. Sr Managing Editor @Analog_SF @Asimovs_SF & @ErisPress. NAMING THE GHOST @CornerstoneUWSP. Opinions my own. she/her

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Articles

Q&A With Tiffany Fritz

2 days ago | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

Analog Editor: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly? Tiffany Fritz: So this was a weird story because it actually came to me all at once. Usually I’m the kind of person to do a lot of brainstorming and prewriting, but with “North American Union v. Exergy-Petroline Corporation,” I just sat down and cranked it out in like a six-hour marathon.
Writing Challenges

2 weeks ago | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

by Brenda CooperOften, when I sit down to write a short story, I find a challenge. For example, I might try to make my readers cry, or to utterly immerse them into the feel and scent of a location. For one of the earlier Analog stories, “The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned,” it was to write a voicy narrator. Often, when it works, this technique produces stories that get more attention than my other stories. Some of them have ended up in Year’s Best anthologies.
Raymund Eich on “Outside the Robles Line”

3 weeks ago | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

On one level, my new story “Outside the Robles Line” is the hardest science fiction story I’ve ever written. It includes charts to illustrate a couple of points! Plus plenty of other math I did while drafting doesn’t appear in the manuscript. But first, you probably have a question. At some point, technological development will yield two things: a maximally efficient fusion reactor, and a maximally efficient solar panel.
The View From a “Groundling”

1 month ago | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

by Shane Tourtellotte“Groundling” is, I’m willing to bet, the first Analog story ever inspired by a 90-year-old astronaut. Yes, it was a publicity stunt when Jeff Bezos got William Shatner, Captain James T. Kirk himself, onto a New Shepard rocket for a sub-orbital flight into the lower reaches of outer space. It was a come-on to draw more paying customers, a strategy Bezos has since done with other celebrities ranging from Michael Strahan to (prospectively as I write) Katy Perry.
Hard Science Fiction and Social Technology

2 months ago | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

by Nate GivensIsaac Asimov once defined science fiction as “that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings.” This gets right to the speculative heart of science fiction, and hard science fiction in particular: imagine a plausible scientific advance and then work through its potential ramifications.
Q&A With Arendse Lund

Mar 4, 2025 | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

Analog Editor: What is the story behind this piece? Arendse Lund: Has anyone ever given you directions based on local landmarks? “Take a left where the Safeway used to be.” “Go right after the old tree. The one the town almost cut down.” Similarly, in Seattle we have road signs that say “No Parking North of Here” but I’ll be surrounded by trees and have no idea where the sun’s coming from. These are perfect directions if you already know the reference point. Otherwise…not so easy.
Q&A With Kate MacLeod

Feb 20, 2025 | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

Analog Editor: What is the story behind this piece? Kate MacLeod: This was a short story I wrote for a Kristine Kathryn Rusch workshop focusing on science fiction mystery, so I’m pretty pleased it’s in an issue of Analog that has that for a theme! We were tasked with writing something in the near future with weather or climate as an element. My initial impulse was to write something in the cold, dark winter, because being from Minnesota I know a bit about living in cold, dark winters.
Q&A With Beth Goder

Feb 12, 2025 | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

Analog Editor: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly? Beth Goder: I wrote the first draft of “Murder on the Eris Express” as part of a contest held by my writing group, Codex. The goal was to write a complete draft in six weeks. The day before the contest, I knew that I wanted to participate, but I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to write—a murder mystery in space.
Making Prince of Spirals Real

Feb 6, 2025 | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

by Sean McMullenAnalog’s full title is Analog Science Fiction Science Fact, and for as long as I have been reading science fiction this has meant one thing for me: when I open an issue I hope to find hard science stories about what really could happen . . . and I try to write that sort of fiction as well. My latest story, Prince of Spirals, features kings, queens and princes rather heavily, yet it contains no trace of fantasy.
Defamiliarization: Against Reality to Examine Reality

Jan 24, 2025 | theastoundinganalogcompanion.com | Emily Hockaday

by Sakinah HoflerDuring my first semester of graduate school in a creative writing program, I enrolled in a class examining the theory of plays. I had an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering, five years of engineering experience, and not a clue what theory was (or who Bertolt Brecht or Friedrich Nietzsche or Jacques Derrida were for that matter). I had naively signed up for the course because I assumed we would spend each class reading Samuel Beckett’s plays out loud.