Happy 2023—Let me see your blog/newsletter!!
Howdy howdy! Welcome to the winter/new year newsletter.
First things first, Ryan and I launched a project to jumpstart creative blogging! It’s aptly named…Bring Back Blogging. In-progress work, craft-poetics, hot takes on the creative life—idk about you, but I selfishly want way more of this in my RSS reader.
We’re using the term ‘blog’ pretty widely here—if you’re already/planning on writing a newsletter or something similar, that totally counts. Own all your content! Host it where you want! We would love to have you participate whether you’re actively blogging, OR, if you’re like, ‘2023, this will be the year I start blogging’.
Just post 3 entries in January, and tell people about the directory (network effects and all). Read the full spiel and submit here!
News
Diverse Worlds Grant
I’m so honored to receive the 2022 Diverse Worlds Grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation for my novel-in-progress. Writing a novel can get sloggy since it’s such a long process, and it’s not like a short story that a crit partner can read in a sitting! Getting this grant was an extremely welcome boost! I’m still deep in revisions and getting more feedback, but I’m hoping to finish a polished draft soon~~after that, its journey will have basically just begun, years later lmao.
Fresh new blog
Speaking of blogs…I finally designed mine! I rebuilt it from the ground up, and it even has dark mode. There are some little issues, but it’s in a workable state. I’m satisfied with my post cadence recently, I hope I can keep it up! If you’re subscribed to this newsletter, I’ll round up the more content-heavy posts each time, but the RSS feed is live and mostlyyyyy working if you’re using some kind of aggregator and want the more hashtag life type posts.
Highlights since last newsletter:
- Every book I read in 2022 (32 in all!)
- Hot posts in r/meandogpack (little flash thing)
Also, I shared a 2022 writing recap last newsletter, but it was a bit early—more stuff happened! And I had more time to really think about how the year really went. So I’ve updated that post as well.
Life
I love Halloween, but my brain is not compatible with the late October/early November scaries. I’m relieved that it’s winter (‘winter’, I live in the Bay Area lol) and Jan/Feb here is my favorite time of year. Everything goes green and it’s usually what I consider perfect weather: 60–65 degrees. Otherwise everything is much the same.
I’m hoping you are all having a restful, lovely end of year, and that your 2023 is as gentle as you desire!
—Ash