Never Enough 2023
Every December I recap the writing triumphs and disappointments of the previous twelve months. Just about every year, I feel like I haven’t done enough.
This year that sensation is hitting me particularly hard. My father died at the end of February after 30 years of struggling with heart disease. I stepped in as his executor and survived his funeral to come home to San Francisco and start work on a book I am really excited about… Then my mom had a stroke in April.
I got her moved into an assisted living apartment just in time for her 82nd birthday. Since then, I sold the farm I grew up on, my mother’s home for 55 years. I haven’t lived there since I left for university in 1983, but it was wrenching to let go of the woods and the pond and the creek where I spent my childhood.
I’m telling myself that I managed to write anything this year is a triumph. Still, it doesn’t seem like enough.
Book publications:I only managed to publish one book this year, the ebook of Death’s Garden Revisited: Personal Relationships with Cemeteries.
Death’s Garden Revisited collects 40 powerful personal essays — accompanied by full-color photographs — to illuminate the reasons people visit cemeteries. Spanning the globe from Iceland to Argentina and from Portland to Prague, Death’s Garden Revisited explores the complex web of relationships between the living and those who have passed before.
You can find the ebook at Amazon or get a copy of the hardcover or trade paperback from Blurb.com.
Upcoming Books:
I spent most of the year working on an updated version of my most popular cemetery book. The new edition will be called 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die. In addition to 23 new cemeteries and a bunch of new photos, I’ve updated every entry in the original book. I’m not allowed to show you the cover yet, since the publisher is still finalizing it, but the book will be out in hardcover in August 2024.
Some of the new cemeteries include Milan’s Monumental Cemetery, the Cemetery of Monaco, and filling in the states I missed in the first edition.
I had really hoped to finish Still Wish You Were Here: More Adventures in Cemetery Travel this year, the sequel to my cemetery memoir which was published in 2017. The new book collects essays I wrote from Gothic.Net, Gothic Beauty, Morbid Curiosity magazine, and a lot of new pieces that will be original to this book. I hope to have it out in May, but I have a lot of work to do before then.
“The Silence of Sirens,” an Alondra story set in the winter in Prague, appears in the Shallow Waters: Horror Flash Fiction Anthology (A Series of Supernatural Stories), edited by Joe Mynhardt and published by Crystal Lake in October 2023. The anthology was originally published as an ebook called Shallow Waters: A Flash Anthology, volume 1 in June 2019.
“Nightbears,” about fighting the monsters under the bed, appears in Manor of Frights, edited by Emerian Rich and published by HorrorAddicts.net. The anthology has a really clever concept: all the stories take place in the same haunted mansion, one for every decade that the house was occupied.
“The Devil’s Debt” appeared in Occult Detective Magazine #9, published in February 2023. It’s the first time my characters Alondra DeCourval and the succubus Lorelei cross paths. One of the reviewers thought the story owes a debt to Elmore Leonard!
Thanks to the Ladies of Horror Fiction Flash Project, I had three short flash stories out this year. You can read them for free:
“Crown Shyness” — an Alondra story that creeped me out! — was published in November 2023.
“Far from Home,” my favorite of the stories I’ve written for the Ladies of Horror project, was published in June 2023. Alondra helps a stranded sea creature find her way home.
“Petrichor Gothic,” the shortest story I’ve written yet appeared online at Spreading the Writers Word by way of the Ladies of Horror Fiction flash project. It was published in May 2023. Alondra seeks out a haunting in Scotland.
Upcoming Short Fiction:“The Ambush Hunters,” a brand-new Alondra story, will appear in 99 Fleeting Fantasies, edited by Jennifer Brozek, to be published by Pulse. It should be out in the first half of next year.
Readings:
I did my first reading (but hopefully not the last) fir the Strong Women, Strange Worlds crew on June 15. If you need a break from real-life horrors, I’ve got you. Jambalaya fixes everything. You can watch my reading of “Dumb Supper” on Youtube: https://youtu.be/js0NK_NUvGk
Elaine Pascale read my “Petrichor Gothic” for another Ladies of Horror Challenge. Sometimes all you want is to get out of the rain in a cozy little ghost story. I’ll embed it below, or you can listen to it on Youtube.
I joined members of the Wily Writers collective for a Facebook party on November 1. I read part of Lost Angels and gave away copies of some Lorelei booklets.
Angel Leigh McCoy played “Never Have I Ever” with the other writers and interviewed Jennifer Brozek. E.S. Magill read the beginning of her brand-new book Magica, and Kerry E.B. Black read from her new-to-me work, too. It was so much fun that we’re looking forward to doing it again.
My working year ended with the Strong Women, Strange Worlds Holiday Extravaganza on December 2. I participated in the Bluff the Audience game with Terri Bruce, Karen Hough, Vanessa MacLaren-Wray, and Anne Nydam, emceed by Lauren Teffeau. Each of us submitted a scene, then the others wrote alternate endings for it — and the audience had to choose which ending was the original. There will be a video of the game on youtube and, best of all, a choose your own ending booklet on Bookfunnel. I’ll let you know when those are available.
I had such a great time playing along that I’m looking forward to doing it again next year.
