Voices on the Midnight Air

The Wicked + the Divine vol. 2 by Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen
We Stand on Guard #1 by Steve Skroce and Brian K. Vaughan
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
Foulsham by Edward Carey
Last First Snow by Max Gladstone
Zeroes by Chuck Wendig


Notable Short Fiction
"The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" by Catherynne Valente
"The Midnight Hour" by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy
The Book of the Dead by Muriel Rukeyser
Requiem by Anna Akhmatova
Wonder Woman #1
Wonder Woman #5
Wonder Woman #6
Collected Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi
Uprooted by Naomi Novik (plus squee on Rocket Talk)
Velvet vol. 2 by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting
The Angel of History by Carolyn Forché
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone (for upcoming review of Craft Sequence)
Atlantis by Mark Doty
The Buriel of the Dead by Seamus Heaney
The Avengers #57
The Avengers #58
The Avengers #113
The Avengers #114
The Fantastic Four #51
The Forever People #1
The Forever People #2
Howard the Duck #8
Howard the Duck #9
Howard the Duck #10
Watchmen (like 3 re-reads)

Hardly any short fiction this month, as the reading schedule for courses and NPR reviews was a bit intense. Also not counting the reading of three short stories of 2500-7500 word length a week written by my students, and marking two courses' worth of assignments.

Books:

My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan
Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear by Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney.
Winona by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Persona by Genevieve Valentine
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
Sex Criminals vol. 2by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky
To My Children's Children by Sindiwe Magona
The Obituary by Gail Scott
Theses on the Philosophy of History by Walter Benjamin

Notable Short Fiction:

"The New Mother" by EJ Fischer (novella) (review)

Last year was the first year I made a living from writing: a mix of reviews, articles, games, poetry and fiction. It still feels pretty incredible.

I had four short stories appear in 2014. Here they are:

"Mon pays c'est l'hiver," Lackington's Magazine
"The Rag Man Mulls Down the Day," PodCastle (audio only)
"The Lonely Sea in the Sky," Lightspeed, Women Destroy Science Fiction
"The Truth About Owls," Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories (link is to reprint at Strange Horizons)

Of those, I'm personally proudest of "The Lonely Sea in the Sky" and "The Truth About Owls." Both were incredibly difficult to write; both felt like a sort of levelling up to me personally; both would have been impossible without the support of incredible editors, loving friends and family members. "The Lonely Sea in the Sky" is my first science fiction story, and the difficulties I had with writing it are documented.

The only poem of mine that appeared last year was "The New Ways" in Uncanny Magazine. But speaking of poetry!

Goblin Fruit is eligible for a Hugo award in the Best Semiprozine category.

Here are some things about Goblin Fruit. Here are some more things: this is our ninth year of operations, of putting out four issues a year of what I consider truly spectacular work. This year, beginning with our next issue, we're raising our rates to $10 a poem.

I don't think an all-poetry journal has ever been on the Hugo ballot. But it genuinely fulfils all the requirements for the category, and last year, according to the vote break-down, it was VERY CLOSE to actually getting on the ballot. So if you've been loving it for a while but haven't ever considered it because Hugo rules are complicated, know that it is eligible! Whether or not it is worthy is of course up to you.

I've been bursting with this for a while: "The Truth About Owls," my story in Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, has been reprinted in Strange Horizons. There's also an interview with Kaleidoscope editors Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios, and you can also listen to Anaea Lay reading the story for the podcast. I can't wait to listen and hear what she's done with it.

I was asked to add an introduction to the story, some stuff about the genesis of it, so I did. I don't really have much to add to that, except that it's probably best read as an afterword: thar be spoilers. But I'm just so grateful that the editors at Strange Horizons asked for this story, that it's now in one of my favourite magazines as well as one of my favourite anthologies from the past year.

Speaking of anthologies and favourites -- I think I neglected to mention (which should say something about how stupefyingly busy I've been these last few weeks) that "The Truth About Owls" is also being reprinted in Jonathan Strahan's Year's Best, in genuinely staggering company. I'm so honoured, and so happy about this. It was a hard story to write, to put out there, and I'm so grateful it's resonating with people.

There's so much more I want to say, but I think my brain's melted for now. I hope you enjoy the story.

(Thanks to seanan_mcguire for the fabulous photo of Zeus and me!)

That last makes it particularly appropriate to talk about this year, its end, and what's happening in the next.

In some semblance of order, then:

• I'm turning 30 (on St Lucia's day)


• I'm going back to Canada for the foreseeable future (on December 28)


• I'm marrying my fiancé (next summer)--


• --from whom I'm going to be separated for over a year while his immigration paperwork gets processed--


• --but I'm trying to comfort myself with the knowledge that I am going to be so busy


• teaching a Creative Writing course at the University of Ottawa (in January)


• while also teaching and studying at Carleton University (for the next two years)


• that hopefully this won't entirely feel like unstitching myself from my lover fibre by fibre with all the fraying and frazzle that entails.

There's a lot more detail to be filled in between those points, but there's also so much to be done in anticipation of leaving that the thought of even doing the work to find the point at which to begin to story-tell is exhausting.

I'm very excited. I'm very sad. I'm going to work very hard.

There's a start, at least.