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I'm feeling predictably flattened by the latest Covid vaccine, though the symptoms didn't come on until I went to bed: insomnia last night, 100.1 degree temperature this morning. I was jubilant that I didn't get a headache this time, but it showed up this morning! Plus my arm is very sore. I just had some coffee and dry toast and feel a little better than when I got up.

The conclusion of my novelette "A Wild Patience" (originally published by GigaNotoSaurus last year), is up at Escape Pod, hosted by S.B. Divya, with narration by Alethea Kontis. I particularly like the quotes from Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Alta they've included at the end of the episodes. (All three of these poets are name-checked in the novelette.)

In even more excellent news, today my mom got her second Moderna shot! What a wonderful relief.

A bit of good news that I forgot to mention amid the swirl of Everything Else: in the June issue of Locus, Rich Horton reviews the Present Tense issue of Not One of Us. He has nice things to say about my story "The Two Mrs. Mansfields" and Alexandra Seidel's story "Lovers on a Bridge."

Also, I just got an email from my massage therapist saying he will soon be seeing clients again. I'm more than a little nervous about this, but I can't overstate how much I need massage therapy, vertigo-wise. (Among other things, when I stand at the kitchen sink, the sink appears to tilt downward, and I feel like I'm being pulled down into it.) So, yay?

I'm so glad I was able to make it to Readercon this year (after missing it last year due to illness). This may have been my favorite Readercon yet, in spite of my vertigo. The vertigo did make things challenging at times, but to my surprise, I felt exponentially better than I did at Wiscon, less than two months ago. This is encouraging, to say the least.

As usual at a con, I didn't see or spend time with everyone I would have liked to, or attend all the panels and readings I wanted to (some of which were scheduled opposite my programming items), but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was so great to see Lisa Bradley (and family), Sonya Taaffe, Victoria Janssen, Virginia Mohlere, and many others. I saw readings by Lisa, Sonya, C.S.E. Cooney (her forthcoming novella Desdemona and the Deep is going to be fantastic), Carlos Hernandez, and Marissa Lingen, as well as readings from Ellen Datlow's The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories (Gemma Files, Jeffrey Ford, Stephen Graham Jones, John Langan, Paul Tremblay). Then there were the hilarious (and at times disturbing, but mostly hilarious) Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes (Marc Abrahams, C.S.E. Cooney, Rose Fox, Heath Miller, Sonya Taaffe). I'd been hearing about the Ig Nobel readings for awhile, and they did not disappoint.

A couple of terrific panels I attended were: Being Vague to Make Space for Horror (Stephen Graham Jones, Darcie Little Badger, Sonya Taaffe, teri.zin, Paul Tremblay) and Writing While Chronically Ill or Disabled (Lisa Bradley, Vylar Kaftan, Darcie Little Badger, Sheila Williams). I'd already watched it at home, but I attended the screening and Q&A of Tananarive Due's excellent documentary on black horror films, Horror Noire, and got even more out of it than the first time I saw it.

I was very happy with the panels I was on this year: The Horrors of Being Female (with Gemma Files, Arkady Martine, Gillian Daniels, Nicole Sconiers, and Kate Maruyama) and The Peril of Being Disbelieved (with Meg Elison, Sonya Taaffe, and teri.zin). The second of these was held on the last day of the con, when I'm typically feeling at my most drained and incoherent, but the topic was so rich, and Sonya and Teri had such great insights, I happily would have continued for another half hour at least. (And I enjoyed describing my favorite scene from The Exorcist, in which a mansplaining doctor gets backhanded across the room.)

Also, I had fun at my poetry reading, albeit sparsely attended. I'm sure I've left things out. But it was a wonderful Readercon.

book (collection of short fiction and poetry)

People Change (Aqueduct Press)


short fiction

"Sinking, Singing" in Not One of Us (issue 60)

"The Paper Doll Golems" in People Change


poetry

"jungle red" in The Cascadia Subduction Zone (Vol. 8 No. 3, 2018)

"scenes from a marriage" in Strange Horizons (6 Aug 2018)

"midas" in Not One of Us (issue 60)

"levitation class," "Bye Bye Love," "Irena in the Garden," "Flaxen Mane," "Gojira / Godzilla," "Thirteen Faces of Deathdream," "Mildred's Villanelle," "shell," and "Love Song From The Blob to Steve McQueen" in People Change


This was a tough year for me, health-wise. I'm a lot better than I was this summer, but my recovery from vertigo is still a work in progress. Nonetheless, I sold a collection of short fiction and poetry, which Aqueduct published this fall, and I'm very proud of it. I also wrote poems, stories, and a novelette, and I've just started work on a new novel.

Needless to say, it's been another tough year for the country. Here's hoping for a much better 2019 for all of us.

I am hennaing my hair on a warmish Los Angeles afternoon. We had the May gray/June gloom, but now we have summer. We are also currently in peak jacaranda season. (The jacarandas got a slow start this year.)

I still have the damn vertigo. Really hoping it will start to abate soon.

I am hennaing my hair on a mild LA afternoon. The bottlebrush trees are beginning to bloom, but the jacarandas are getting a later start than they did last year. Possibly allergies from stuff blooming are the reason I've been dealing with some minor vertigo for the past week or so. I hope it ceases soon.

I'm still slowly reading the wonderful Emily Wilson Odyssey translation, and I've started Dorothy B. Hughes's In a Lonely Place (which I hadn't realized would be so different from the film).

It is Henna Day, and I am slightly discombobulated, because I usually henna my hair on a Sunday and it's Saturday. This is also apparently my first LJ entry of the new year. The weather has been weirdly vacillating between unseasonably warm and--well, I can't really say unseasonably cold when most of the country has been Polar Vortex-ville, so I'll just say less warm. The weather shifts have been making my allergies go to town.

I was going to go to the Story Tavern tonight to meet up with friends, but C. has a cold, so we've rescheduled. Thus, tonight will probably consist of Jo book revision and poetry writing, plus watching old movies and reading. And possibly some hot and sour soup. All of which sounds pretty good.

I had a wonderful Readercon. Possibly my favorite Readercon yet, even though I had a pain flare-up towards the end. (And, of course, there was the Zimmerman verdict.)

Books I bought at Readercon (from the Small Beer table):

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
Errantry by Elizabeth Hand
The Black Fire Concerto by Mike Allen!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...but all in all, I'd call my 2012 a good year.

I only had two publications this year, but I'm very pleased with them:

"bell, book, candle" in Strange Horizons, 26 March 2012.

"The Pied Piper vs. The Sirens" in Mythic Delirium #27, November 2012.

I didn't write a whole lot of poetry this year (and no short fiction at all, I think?), as this was The Year of Finishing the Draft of the Jo Book. It took somewhat longer than I'd expected, but writing this draft was one of the greatest and most challenging experiences of my writing life.

I got sick this summer and had a couple of miserable months until I got diagnosed and started physical therapy. I'm still not entirely recovered, but I'm so much better (to the point that I can't fully remember how bad I felt last summer).

Tonight I'll be doing my usual new year's celebration: champagne, caviar and other goodies, and DVDs.

A very happy new year to you all!