First two writing sales of 2017 + reading project
A new poem, "Origin Story," will be published in Dreams & Nightmares 106 (May), and a new essay, "Being the Dictionary," will be published in an as-yet-untitled anthology of pieces by adult-diagnosed autistic individuals from ASAN (November).
I don't know how many of you who don't follow me on Facebook had explicitly registered this, but I recently moved from Boston, MA to Albuquerque, NM. Six months is, to me, not that long. Once the divorce was finalized in July (already covered in both a previous post and on FB: how James turned out to be a bigoted, cheating, emotionally abusive egomaniac), I relocated for a couple of reasons. One, my dad and stepfamily have lived out here for over a decade, and two, I got a job offer at University of New Mexico.
Not all of my belongings came with me at first, as I had to move on very short notice for both work and personal-safety reasons, but I recently got back all of my books, my two beautiful Peshawar rugs, and my framed artwork, nearly all of which are originals by various of my talented friends. Unpacking and going through my books has meant realizing that there are a number of them, mostly accrued during my hectic Fellowship-and-M.F.A.-year at Boston University, that I haven't even gotten around to reading:
The Middle Ages in Popular Culture
Chaucer's (Anti-)Eroticisms and the Queer Middle Ages
Language and Imagination in the Gawain-Poems
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking
Lifelode
Swordspoint
The Fifty Year Sword
Breaking Bad: Critical Essays on the Contexts, Politics,
Style, and Reception of the Television Series
The Forms of the Affects
Snape: A Definitive Reading
Hidden Youth
XIII: Stories of Transformation
(The latter three are anthologies in which I have either short stories or poems, but which I have not gotten around to reading in their entirety.)
The events of 2016 took a lot out of me, by which I mean it's a miracle I've kept up with my obligations as they stand. Frequently, I've even had to pick up responsibilities that aren't mine; I'm not the kind of person who can neglect the duties I've promised to execute in favor of faithful blog updates, not even when I'm already taxed to the breaking-point, so pardon my relatively long absence. Even now, I'm recovering from severe viral bronchitis.
My thought is that, since there are twelve books, I should aim to read and review one per month here in 2017. In the past, I would've attempted a book a week, but the realities of working full-time, writing in my spare time, and going into my fifth year of editing at Strange Horizons make that impossible. My kingdom for a Time-Turner.
I know better than to say I hope that 2017 brings better, brighter things, because the simple fact of recent political events indicates that, for most people like me and for most of the people I care about most, it probably won't. Instead, I'll say this: I hope it's a year in which the very fact of our continued existence is the ultimate act of defiance.
I don't know how many of you who don't follow me on Facebook had explicitly registered this, but I recently moved from Boston, MA to Albuquerque, NM. Six months is, to me, not that long. Once the divorce was finalized in July (already covered in both a previous post and on FB: how James turned out to be a bigoted, cheating, emotionally abusive egomaniac), I relocated for a couple of reasons. One, my dad and stepfamily have lived out here for over a decade, and two, I got a job offer at University of New Mexico.
Not all of my belongings came with me at first, as I had to move on very short notice for both work and personal-safety reasons, but I recently got back all of my books, my two beautiful Peshawar rugs, and my framed artwork, nearly all of which are originals by various of my talented friends. Unpacking and going through my books has meant realizing that there are a number of them, mostly accrued during my hectic Fellowship-and-M.F.A.-year at Boston University, that I haven't even gotten around to reading:
The Middle Ages in Popular Culture
Chaucer's (Anti-)Eroticisms and the Queer Middle Ages
Language and Imagination in the Gawain-Poems
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking
Lifelode
Swordspoint
The Fifty Year Sword
Breaking Bad: Critical Essays on the Contexts, Politics,
Style, and Reception of the Television Series
The Forms of the Affects
Snape: A Definitive Reading
Hidden Youth
XIII: Stories of Transformation
(The latter three are anthologies in which I have either short stories or poems, but which I have not gotten around to reading in their entirety.)
The events of 2016 took a lot out of me, by which I mean it's a miracle I've kept up with my obligations as they stand. Frequently, I've even had to pick up responsibilities that aren't mine; I'm not the kind of person who can neglect the duties I've promised to execute in favor of faithful blog updates, not even when I'm already taxed to the breaking-point, so pardon my relatively long absence. Even now, I'm recovering from severe viral bronchitis.
My thought is that, since there are twelve books, I should aim to read and review one per month here in 2017. In the past, I would've attempted a book a week, but the realities of working full-time, writing in my spare time, and going into my fifth year of editing at Strange Horizons make that impossible. My kingdom for a Time-Turner.
I know better than to say I hope that 2017 brings better, brighter things, because the simple fact of recent political events indicates that, for most people like me and for most of the people I care about most, it probably won't. Instead, I'll say this: I hope it's a year in which the very fact of our continued existence is the ultimate act of defiance.