The Plague Years

Hello dear reader -- it's been a while, hasn't it? I assume you're been like me: surviving the pandemic, pondering your life purpose, procrastinating on writing by joining three book clubs (seriously, I was in three virtual book clubs at once... Apparently I'm desperate to connect with my fellow bookworms. Don't worry, I paired it down to one).

I did play pandemic bingo and almost got a blackout. I got a sweet Labrador just as the pandemic kicked off, also got pregnant and had a gorgeous baby boy, was laid off, started freelancing (pretty successfully!) and the began working full time again with a very cool company as an editor. My sourdough starter still needs some work, though. It's been busy, without feeling busy.

I was pleased to be accepted into the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Horror Writer's Association. You know, some of those awesome young, aspiring dreams come true. I also edited an amazing anthology, Marvel Xavier's Institute: School of X (which is pretty damn good), and have a new book announcement coming out soon... details to come very soon, I promise! My second book in the Celestial Scripts series, Seams of Shadow, released to some nice praise and I'm working on the concluding installment.

A novel I acquired and edited, Papa Lucy and the Boneman, earned a Publishers Weekly Starred Review, and like a proud mama bird I preened for author Jason Fischer and his success. It's seriously such a good book. Horror Mad Max but like fantasy, too. A couple other books I acquired and edited have released and are doing well, and it feels amazing to have these stories you uncovered through the submission pile or through a Twitter contest become a book you can snuggle on the couch with, with a cup of tea or coffee, of course, and get lost in them. Kate Martin's The Soulless is a soaring dark fantasy and Raelyn Teague's The Wolf's Name is a cozy historical magical realism tale. Check them out and see why I fell in love with them.

So, while feeding my munchkin at 3am and rocking him until I felt seasick, I felt the need to document all this and plonked words down in my phone. Clumsily, with one thumb and lots of backspacing and using autofill, but words nontheless. It's been a journey I hope to share and hear yours.