The Year That Was

I have not written as much as I hoped this year (so say we all), but I did start work on a project that promises to be terrifying and horrible, so that is exciting and ahhhh writing. Dear god, it's that time of year again, awards awards awards awards awards awards--

Here's what I published in 2017:

January saw the reprint of "A Wisdom That Is Woe, a Woe That Is Madness" in The Dark. It originally appeared in A Mythos Grimmly, and is a retelling of Rapunzel though a Lovecraftian lens. It is one of my favorite things to have written. A prince searches for a captive princess, having no idea the thing he seeks is older than the world itself.

February brought "Blush Response" to the No Shit There I Was anthology, edited by Alex Acks. This story was a challenge; it is set in a world that is literally black and white and all shades of gray. Within this world, there are women who can channel color, color which is used to mark those guilty of crimes. But the color also brings with it a painful high and our heroine is looking for her next fix, even if she has to kidnap the woman who can give it to her.

February also marked my appearance in Gamut with "Figure 8." This story is about the eighth woman in a line of clones. Built to be a killer, she knows she's the best, and is on the trail of the seven who came before her.

In March, I dabbled in a little smut with "Virtually Yours" for Great Jones Street. I used to write more smut than I presently do, but that may change in 2018.

I broke into IGMS for the first time in April with "Murmuration." This story is set in my Distances universe, but each story stands wholly on its own. In "Murmuration," our heroine finds a strange bone on the surface of Mars, and its existence touches on one deeper, something strange within herself.

In May, I got to bring my circus universe to Apex Magazine, with "The Three-tongued Mummy." This story also allowed me to marry my true loves, Egypt and the carnival. Wouldn't you just know Jackson had bought a mummy from a dealer in Cairo? And wouldn't you just know that mummy ain't quite right...

May also marked my ninth story at Clarkesworld, "Baroness." This is also set in my Distances universe, and concerns the crew on Saturn's moon Titan. Methane miners find something horribly weird in Kraken Mare. This story was an attempt to talk about refugees and workers and how we use bodies when they are not our own.

Early summer, "But For the Pieces He Left Behind" appeared in the Clockwork Cairo anthology. Yay Egypt! This story is another about my dwarfess heroine, Muriel. While attending the opera in Cairo, Things Go Weird and Strange, and lead Muriel on an adventure toward a ghost she thought she laid to rest in the Antarctic.

The Thing in the Ice is unlike anything else I've written; it appeared in June, as part of the Kaiju Revised novella series from Apokrupha. Monster stories told by and about women. I set this one on Ceres, where ice miners accidently (?!) release something from the water ice on the asteroid. Space dragons, bisexuals, a thousand hidden Easter eggs, McDonalds in Space, and true love. You know, the usual.

"Mix Tapes from Dead Boys" marked my second Lightspeed appearance in July. Once again in my Distances universe, this story is about Hadley, who is stationed in Neptune's orbit. Things are weird this far in the system, and Neptune's got some explaining to do: why's it so hot? Hadley's searching for an answer she may not like.

"Salt in Her Hollows" came to the Strange California anthology in August. I always wanted to write a story about a surfer chasing after something that calls her, and I wrote this one before Strange California was even a thing. When the anthology was announced, I hoped the story would find its place there. So thankful it did.

The Dark had me back in October with "Ghostling," possibly my most misunderstood story. Every person who reviewed the story misgendered the main character--perhaps because of the first line. "Welch fucks the ghosts in the orchard." Welch is intentionally not gendered in the story, in an attempt to speak to the ways nonbinary and others of our world walk through ghostly spaces the gendered cannot wholly understand unless they (we) get quiet and listen to their experiences.

The Clockwork Tomb also published this year, the fourth installment of my Folley & Mallory Adventures. In this novella, Mallory gifts Eleanor with a tomb to explore, a tomb that her own father one researched. Is it connected to her missing mother and the ancient Egyptian pharaoh she served? Of course it is. Volume five, The Quartered Heart, should appear in 2018.

And that's probably all I will publish this year, given how the rejections have been stacking up like snow as the weeks wind down. I feel like I didn't do a lot this year, and that's ridiculous.