Dear friends,

I'm coming into this new year with a lot of positive momentum. I'm not any more thrilled with the global events of '25 than anybody else, and I am sure not free of personal worries, but all the same I have a fresh coating of snow on the ground and a song in my heart, and that song is not even "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think."

I had one last new piece come out in December! Uncanny Magazine published The Stranger Next Door: The Domestic Fantastic in Classic Nordic Children's Fantasy. Now, you may be thinking, did Marissa come up with an excuse to get paid for rereading the Pippi Longstocking books and the Moomin books? I sure did, friends. I absolutely did, what a life. And do you want to read about why the coziness of these books is well-founded? Well, there you go, have an essay.

Those of you who've been subscribing to my newsletter all year have heard about all of my 2025 publications already, but I have written a blog post about them in case you're new or think you have missed any. I also did a list of recommended short speculative fiction and poetry for the year. I know it's not a complete list of things I'd like, because I've just started reading a Christmas present that's an anthology of stories mostly new to 2025, but still, appreciating some things while you have them is better than waiting to be comprehensive.

My writing year ended with something exciting that is not for sharing with the public yet, so you'll have to wait to hear what that is. (This is called suspense or narrative tension!) Meanwhile I have the copyedit of my upcoming 2026 debut novella, A Dubious Clamor, sitting in my inbox to go through, and that's progress in that direction too. Hurrah.

One of the most delightful things about the end of 2025 is that some of my friends got together and bought me an apple Advent calendar. An apple Advent calendar! Oh brave new world that has such apples in it! Who even knew such delights were available on this planet, and yet here we are, 24 small boxes with a different apple cultivar in each one, how did they fit so much happiness in one reasonably sized box. I have now tasted 21 different apples. One of the remaining three is supposed to be kept as long as possible, until March at least, and the other two are supposed to be for baking, but I now have a spreadsheet with notes on these delightful apples. (No one who subscribes to this newsletter can possibly say that it comes as a surprise to them that I am a big ol’ nerd. It is my glory.)

If you're the sort of person whose friends are correct to buy an apple Advent calendar (SO CORRECT, THANK YOU AGAIN, FRIENDS), you…probably already had apples in the house when you got 24 apples. Which is true of me. So I made apple crisp! I made baked apples! I made a beautiful sage and black pepper pasta sauce with apples! And I made this: tarte normande. It's an apple custard tart that I absolutely will make again. I will also probably make it with other fruits in it, because why not? What could go wrong with a custard tart with cherries, plums, peaches, or blueberries? I will also probably try it with gf flour in the crust, because again why not? Why shouldn't my family members with celiac enjoy a fruity custardy goodness? My only caveats for this recipe are that mine took much longer to bake than they expected (an additional 12 minutes) and that I would absolutely add 1/4 - 1/2 t. nutmeg. I was raised with nutmeg in a custard, and I can hear my beloved Aunt Ellen's voice in my head exclaiming, "Oh, that's what makes it good!"

I hope that you have a strong notion of what's going to make it good in 2026, whatever the rest of the world thinks. We'll be doing our best around here.

Excelsior,

Marissa