I joked last month that we were hitting the second half of September so quickly that I was starting to refer to it as "Long October" because October being long was less upsetting than September nearing its end too soon.
September was a strange month for me: I broke my laptop pretty early in the month, and it took a while for repairs to come through. While I was able to plug it into the monitor I use for my day job to use in my office, I found that it was hard for me to draft at my own desk. Drafting is for being curled over like a gremlin, it's for being out in coffee shops, it's not for the place I do my work.
So I didn't write a lot; this was probably good for me.
But now we're in the middle of October and I feel all over the place. The month has gone on forever; the month has barely started. And I've been having difficulty reorienting. My body senses proximity to November where typically, instead of doing a NaNoWriMo project, I play as many video games as I can.
While I don't think my creativity is going into hibernation, I think I'm starting to settle into the dark and cozy times that always hit this time of year. I'm not mad about it. The rest will do me good.
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The cover of Star*Line 49.4
Look, ma! I have a poem that got published!
(My mother was the first person I told; she was very proud of me.)
I don't have much more to say about that. It's a poem about love and trauma and healing and opening yourself up to the possibility that things are better than you think they are. I wrote it earlier this year as part of a poetry writing event and am very proud of it. If you're curious, you can read it in Star*Line Magazine!
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Art for "Aces High, Aces Low" Commissioned from @giuliablackcat on Instagram.
Yes, I've been shouting about this with excitement for most of the past year: My third short story published in Flame Tree Press' Romantic Fantasy anthology series is out now in the UK and on Tuesday in the US. You can order a copy of this beautiful anthology from your poison of choice.
This story is called "Aces High, Aces Low," and it's set in a dystopian world where someone's social destiny is determined by playing cards. I was inspired for the aesthetic primarily by seeing a ballet version of Alice in Wonderland last year. I love this world and hope to set more stories there in the future. But for now, Zitra and Avi have made it into the world and I couldn't be happier.
All three of the Flame Tree Press Anthologies I've been published in this year!
It's a beautiful thing to have such beautiful copies; it's an even more beautiful thing that an imprint has so forcefully indicated they like my writing. I am so grateful to Flame Tree Press for their support. And I'm grateful to all of you for reading!
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I finally got around to reading This Was Funnier In China, and heartily recommend it. It traces the life of the author, Jesse Appell, as he studied and performed traditional Chinese comedy while living in Beijing as a Fullbright scholar, and the adventures he had after his scholarship ended. It's interesting, funny, thoughtful, heartfelt, and captures so vividly the experience of being in China for those who've never had the opportunity to go.
I studied in Beijing with Jesse, and am an avid supporter of his tea shop. The book filled me with a nostalgia for Beijing that I feel so rarely these days as my own life has taken me further and further away from the Chinese history I studied in college. If you are an audiobook person, I definitely recommend the audiobook, which is read by Jesse himself.
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More soon, I'm sure. Though if there are updates in November, be warned because I will also be talking about Final Fantasy X, the video game Katie Shepard told me it's my time to play.
