Overall, 2010 was a good year for me writing-wise.

I began the year with a bit of a bang — with stories in back-to-back issues of Interzone.  “In the Harsh Glow of its Incandescent Beauty” appeared in the January/February issue (#226).  It features my lovestruck aliens, the Wergens, who are assisting a man on a quest across the solar system to Triton to rescue his ex-wife.   “Dance of the Kawkawroons,” then appeared in the March/April issue (#227).  It’s a story about an avaricious human couple who break a quarantine around an alien world in order to plunder the precious eggs of a sentient avian species.  Rich Horton recently called “Kawkawroons” one of the best short stories published by Interzone in 2010.

In March, the Hugo Award-winning StarshipSofa podcast my story “Snatch Me Another,” pitting it in battle against a classic tale by C.M. Kornbluth.  Listeners were asked to vote for their favorite.  (I’ll admit that I was slightly embarrassed by the contest and voted for the Kornbluth story without even listening to it).   I also recorded an introduction to the story, explaining what inspired me to write it.

2010 also marked the first time I was published in a foreign language.  In May, Czech SF magazine Ikarie reprinted my novelette  “Longing for Langalana” (“Touha po Langalane”) It was a hoot reading the translated Czech reviews for the story, which were quite positive (or at least I think they were).  Ikarie also re-published “The Scent of Their Arrival,” my novelette about aliens that communicate by scent, and the mystery of the spaceship that orbits their world.  It was fascinating comparing the artist’s depiction of the aliens to the rendition of the same aliens by Interzone‘s artist.

In May, Beam Me Up, a radio show originating out of Maine, broadcast the Starship recording of “Snatch Me Another.” In June, Beam Me Up followed up with a superbly produced podcast of my Electric Velocipede story, “Dear Annabehls,” a story consisting of a series of letters to an advice-columnist in a future world where a device allows us to get anything we want — simply by snatching it from an alternate dimension.

In July, I was “spotlighted” over at Senses Five Press as one of the editors of Sybil’s Garage.  Also, in August I was interviewed over at Clarkesworld with my fellow Altered Fluidians about our writing group and the way we operate.

In August/September, my dark fantasy/horror story “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us” appeared in Black Static #18, one of the preeminent horror magazines being published today.   It received a glowing review from SF Signal, the reviewer calling it “[A] brilliant meditation upon the role of magical thinking in our political culture… it is also one of the most atmospheric, disturbing and thought-provoking short stories I have ever encountered. If Rivera’s work does not get picked up by one of the Year’s Best anthologies then there really is no justice in the world.”  I’m trying to get T-shirts made with that blurb, but them’s a lot of words.

In September, I co-hosted the KGB Fantastic Fiction series with my buddy Matt Kressel when Ellen Datlow couldn’t attend.  This reminds me that earlier in the year, in June, I also had the pleasure of co-hosting the NYRSF reading with Jim Freund when fellow Fluidians N.K. Jemisin, E.C. Myers and Devin Poore all read their great stories.

Overall, not a bad year.