2023 Annual Wrap-Up
It’s that time of year when we’re all reading and writing annual “best of” listicles, and it’s a great time to support authors and artists and small business owners!
But first, some personal news. The main reason I’ve been so irregular in this space, despite my best intentions is that, for the past five months, I’ve been experiencing some worrisome and debilitating symptoms. It turns out, unfortunately, that I have endometrial cancer. My prognosis is good, but it’s going to be a long road of surgery and treatment. Fortunately, I have an excellent team at the University of Iowa Hospital, and feel very optimistic, but also still in a lot of pain and discomfort (to put it mildly). It was all I could do to get out of bed to teach the six classes at three different universities (ah, adjunct life). I’m so grateful to finally be on Winter Break.
And now, some recommendations.
My favorite book of the year remains the first book I read, and that’s Babel by R.F. Kuang. I’m also eager to read Kuang’s most recent novel, Yellowface, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. I hear excellent things, though.
In the past several weeks, I’ve devoured a huge number of holiday-themed romance novels, and it’s been delightful. Some people like Hallmark movies, I like my romance novels for the same worm and cozy fluff feeling. It’s the perfect antidote to that crush of end-of-semester grading. Some of my favorites:
I just finished reading Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling, a near-future post climate change dystopian novel that I really loved. I’ve been working on my own climate change novel, and this one was great.
This autumn, I had the pleasure of working as an editor and “book doula” for writer Isabel Peña Alfaro, as she prepared her novella Taming Jackal for publication. This book is wonderful, and well worth a read. It’s an unflinching depiction of mental illness and severe depression through a speculative lens. I loved seeing the book come together, and getting to hold the final version in my hands after spending months with the manuscript was a thrill. If you’re interested in working with me in this capacity, I still have some slots available for 2024, so check out my website and contact me soon!
I’ve enjoyed losing myself in fantasy novels and fluffy, diverting romance books, and sprawling epic book series. I’m diving back in to both the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, and Terry Prachett’s Discworld, as well as Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series. When I don’t feel well to do much of anything, books are one thing I still have, fortunately.
I also reread old favorites multiple times. I keep returning to Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and read two of her most recent novels, as well. I’m hoping to read her earlier novels in 2024. She is such a poet’s novelist, by which I mean, her writing is gorgeous on a sentence level. I also love her complex, intertwining plots. Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility are exactly the kind of novel I’d like to be able to write, so I keep rereading in hopes something seeps into my brain that helps me construct such a beautiful book. Fiction still feels awkward for me, and a bit unnatural, but this story has been clunking around in my brain for years now, and I think it wants out.
In 2024, I hope to read even more, write a lot, and get back to at least semi-regular writing of this newsletter.
Happy New Year.
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