Burstein's first published story, "TeleAbsence", which appeared in the July 1995 issue of
Analog, was nominated for the
Hugo Award and was chosen by the readers of
Analog as the best short story published by the magazine in 1995. Two years later, Burstein won the
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 1997
World Science Fiction Convention, LoneStarCon2. Burstein subsequently received Hugo nominations for "Broken Symmetry", "Cosmic Corkscrew", "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" (also a
Nebula Award nominee), "Spaceships", "
Paying It Forward", "Decisions", "Time Ablaze", "Seventy-Five Years", and "TelePresence", and a Nebula and
Sturgeon Award nomination for "Reality Check". His novella "Sanctuary" was chosen by the readers of
Analog as the best novella published by the magazine in 2005 and was a nominee for the
Nebula Award. Burstein's short story collection
I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein was released by Apex Publications on November 1, 2008. On February 19, 2010, the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced that the title story from the collection had been nominated for the 2009
Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Burstein is the editor of ''Jewish Futures: Stories from the World's Oldest Diaspora'', an anthology of speculative fiction published by Fantastic Books on August 7, 2023. The book's crowdfunding campaign on
Kickstarter was launched in October of 2022 by
Ian Randal Strock and met its funding goal in four days. Burstein currently contributes columns to the science fiction entertainment website
SFScope. From 1998 to 2000, Burstein served as Secretary of the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He chaired the final Nebula Script jury in 2008. On January 1, 2014, he took office as the first permanent president of the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling, Inc. (SASS). He served for one year. From 2014 until 2017, Burstein was a news correspondent for
The Jewish Advocate. == Public office ==