Honestly this is a very weird one for me to write, because this year split down the middle for fairly obvious mental reasons. A major loss that changes your life will make it feel like you’ve had two very different years in one, so looking back and saying, “Really? that was this year?” Well, really, self: it was. I have really written two middle-grade novels and a novella this year, and an assortment of essays, poems (?! when did that happen?), and stories. I would give an exact count, but it’s only December 9, and the odds that I finish something else short before December 31 are fairly good, so let’s say…at least fifteen pieces of fiction shorter than a novella, as of right now.
If you said to yourself “throwing herself into work,” you would not be far wrong. But mostly it has been in a very good way, in a positive and inspired way. In a year when one of the things I wrote is my dad’s eulogy, I’m pretty proud of not just what I’ve written but the spirit I’ve written it in. I’m making myself a lot of revision work for the second half of the year and for 2020, but that’s all right too. (Even though I am also eager to write more new things. And have some clear ideas on that front.)
As for what’s been published, buckle in, it’s a list. On the fiction side, I got to continue to work with editors I have enjoyed working with very consistently before and also get familiar with a few new faces. Here’s what I was up to:
“The Thing, With Feathers,” Uncanny, Jan/Feb 2019.
“The Deepest Notes of the Harp and Drum,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January 2019.
“Painting the Massive Planet,” Analog, May/June 2019.
“Wrap Me In Oceans Wide,” Strange Horizons, 17 July 2019.
“How We Know They Have Faces,” Nature, 24 July 2019.
“Purposeful,” Daily Science Fiction, October 2019.
“In the Ancestor’s New House,” Spirits Unwrapped, edited by Daniel Braum (Lethe Press).
“Filaments of Hope,” Analog, Nov/Dec 2019.
“Family Album,” Nature, 13 November 2019.
I also had fiction reprints in print and podcast format and translations into Chinese and Spanish. I appeared on podcasts. I got interviewed. I sang, I danced, I juggled. (Okay, I did not actually juggle. I sing and dance a lot. It’s a thing.) Meanwhile in nonfiction, in addition to this blog I continued to write a little more for other places, and I like it:
That Never Happened, Uncanny Issue 27 (March/April 2019).
Beyond Cinderella: Exploring Agency Through Domestic Fantasy, Tor.com, 2 May 2019.
Beware the Lifeboat, Uncanny Issue 29 (July/August 2019).
I have a couple of things coming out in January, with more beyond that, and of course a lot of what I wrote in 2019 is either on submission or being prepared for submission. There’s a lot of momentum here, is what I’m saying. And that’s a good thing.
Happy reading.