Designed by the enormously talented Gigi Little–read more on her blog here.

Thank you to Diana Abu-Jaber for this honor! Click here to see the entire list.

“In a spellbinding structure that spirals around the mysterious Royal Casino, Queen of Spades weaves a cast of high-stakes dealers and gamblers closer and closer together as if within a spider’s web. Though their games are staked on chance, these characters’ lives intersect by fate, destiny and magic. Michael Shou-Yung Shum has written a luminous…

“Queen of Spades is a paean to the deeply human thrill of gambling—part fond portrait of casino life, part poker-faced mysticism, part exploration of the risks we’re willing to take in search of meaning. Michael Shou-Yung Shum has imagined a world in which cosmic forces are at play, populated it with odd and charming seekers…

It’s happened! My first novel, Queen of Spades, has found its perfect home! Here is the official announcement: Forest Avenue Press has acquired world rights for Queen of Spades, the debut novel by Michael Shou-Yung Shum, tentatively slated for publication in October 2017. Based on the author’s experience working as a poker dealer, Queen of Spades is a modern re-telling of the…

For those of you in the area, please join us on Saturday, April 23, 7:30pm, at Rust Belt Books in Buffalo, NY, for an interactive art event entitled Not the Right Fit, featuring readings by myself, Jaclyn Watterson, Robin Lee Jordan, and Seth Cosimini, and music by Transfer in Jamaica, Dog Model, and Lalalangue.  Prepare…

On a very cold day in December, Salvador called a meeting of the Science Club to inform us that he’d discovered a body in an alley several blocks from our junior high, frozen to the pavement behind the dumpsters. This was no ordinary body, he proclaimed, decayed beyond definition. You’re going to want to keep…

Like events are drawn to one another—Jung recognized the richness of these potentially mysterious connections, and described them as examples of “synchronicity.” Significantly, these connections are not causally related, as are events that take place within our realm of logical understanding (i.e., I turn the knob and a door opens). Rather, synchronous connections are, as…

Kay read the notice announcing the wake in the morning paper, while drinking a very bitter coffee. The deceased was known to her by name only, but it was an old and familiar name, attached to an aristocratic line that Kay respected. A fever hospital in her small hometown, in fact, shared the name. She…