2016. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
This year, you guys. This year.
Ugh.
I’m trying to hang on. I’m trying to take whatever small actions I can. I’m trying to move forward, and to look for all the cracks where the light gets in (RIP, Leonard Cohen), and to keep putting words on paper, instead of slipping down the whirlpool of terrifying news and social media and exhaustion.
I’m trying to hold on to hope.
Because we have to keep fighting.
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Well, it has been so long since I’ve posted here that I’d actually forgotten how to log in on WordPress. Probably not a great sign. But it’s been my tradition to post a year-end list of everything I’ve written, published, and read, and I think my tired, angry brain can manage this much.
Here goes:
Novels published: DREAMERS OFTEN LIE (Dial/Penguin, April 2016)
Short stories published: “The Troll Truth” (and accompanying essay, “The Edible Lie Detector Test”) in the anthology BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, VOL. 2: SCHOOL DAZED (Grosset & Dunlap, August 2016)
Poems published: 0 (It’s been a very bad year for poetry. *$ing 2016!!!)
Novels written: 2 (One MG, one YA)
Short stories written: 4
Poems written: 1 (like I said, BAD YEAR)
Plays written: 1 (almost)
Reading list (rereads are marked with asterisks, and read-alouds are in bold):
PRAGUE – Arthur Phillips
THE LAST MADAM: A LIFE IN THE NEW ORLEANS UNDERWORLD – Christine Wiltz
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, VOL 1: WRITING STORIES FROM REAL LIFE – Mike Winchell, Ed.
DO UNTO ANIMALS – Tracey Stewart
EL DEAFO – Cece Bell
THE ARGONAUTS – Maggie Nelson
NO LOGO – Naomi Klein
WINK POPPY MIDNIGHT – April Genevieve Tucholke
REBEL BELLE – Rachel Hawkins
AN EMBER IN THE ASHES – Sabaa Tahir
DOVE ARISING – Karen Bao
THE DARK DAYS CLUB – Alison Goodman
BONE GAP – Laura Ruby
REBEL OF THE SANDS – Alwyn Hamilton
GIRL LAST SEEN – Anne Greenwood Brown and Heather Anastasiu
JUST KIDS – Patti Smith
BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA – April Genevieve Tucholke
WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR – Paul Kalanithi
THE SCORPIO RACES – Maggie Stiefvater
IN WINTER’S KITCHEN – Beth Dooley
WHEN YOU LUNCH WITH THE EMPEROR: THE ADVENTURES OF LUDWIG BEMELMANS – Ludwig Bemelmans
NINTH WARD – Jewell Parker Rhodes
THE WALLS AROUND US – Nova Ren Suma
EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR – E.K. Johnston
*DAVID COPPERFIELD – Charles Dickens
FATES AND FURIES – Lauren Groff
GREEN BABY – Susannah Marriott
THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS – Neil Gaiman
WEREWORLD – Curtis Jobling
* TELEGRAPH AVENUE – Michael Chabon
A MAN CALLED OVE – Fredrik Backman
WILD – Cheryl Strayed
RADICAL – E.M. Kokie
LIFE AFTER DEATH – Damien Echols
DEAF CHILD CROSSING – Marlee Matlin
THE CONSUMER HANDBOOK ON HEARING LOSS AND HEARING AIDS – Richard Carmen, Au D., ed.
CORPSES, COFFINS, AND CRYPTS: A HISTORY OF BURIAL – Penny Colman
HUSH, HUSH – Becca Fitzpatrick
WYTCHES, VOL 1 – Scott Snyder, etc.
THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH, FAMILY HAPPINESS, THE KREUZER SONATA, MASTER AND MAN – Leo Tolstoy
*SWEETBLOOD – Pete Hautman
BLOOD AND SALT – Kim Liggett
SEE NO COLOR – Shannon Gibney
COMET IN MOOMINLAND – Tove Jansson
BELZHAR – Meg Wolitzer
RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE – Kate DiCamillo
PETER NIMBLE AND HIS FANTASTIC EYES – Johnathan Auxier
A TANGLE OF KNOTS – Lisa Graff
NINE LIVES: FROM STRIPPER TO SCHOOLTEACHER – MY YEARLONG ODYSSEY IN THE WORKFORCE – Lynn Snowden
WRITING THE OTHER: A PRACTICAL APPROACH – Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward
STEERING THE CRAFT – Ursula K. LeGuin
THE JOKE – Milan Kundera
Standouts include the utterly gorgeous BONE GAP, which deserves every bit of praise it’s gotten, WILD, which was just as good as everybody says and which was the fuel for about a zillion conversations afterward, WYTCHES, which is the most viscerally terrifying comic I’ve ever read (knocking FROM HELL off of that particular pedestal), and the wondrous, world-affirming RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE and NINTH WARD. These are the books that make me want to keep going, keep trying, keep writing. And I have to give a special mention to FATES AND FURIES. I generally forget a character’s name and specific qualities soon after I finish a book–they just dissolve back into the slosh of fictional stuff bubbling in my brain–but Lotto and Mathilde stand out in my mind, as clear and solid and complicated as two real live people. Groff’s character construction is masterful. Ooh–and THE ARGONAUTS. And JUST KIDS. And THE SCORPIO RACES.
Okay: it may have been a dark year, but there were a lot of beautiful books in it.
(Also, I have the little smiling creature on the sled in my life. That makes everything brighter.)
