Trying to outrun time.
It is tempting, always, to talk about time. Time is the fire in which we burn, and I'm feeling awfully hot these days. I want to tell you that I am sure, in my soul, that 2019 started at least six months ago. But here we are, only January down. So my soul must be mistaken.
Even so, I’m already looking into February as something that is half-over. I’m in a panel with the great Charlie Jane Anders as part of the Night of Ideas at the San Francisco Public Library on the 2nd, just before I leave the state. Why am I leaving, you ask? I’ll be in Kirksville, Missouri, teaching as a visiting writer in the creative writing program at Truman State University for the first part of the month. I’m looking forward to everything but the wind chill and the prop-plane flight from St. Louis to the smaller city.
In January, I had a short story published in Lightspeed magazine. It’s nothing like my usual work; it’s a light-hearted fantasy about families and publishing houses, magic books and spaceships and ghosts who dance at weddings. If my typical offerings are a little grim for you, you may find that you like this one.
My monthly reading series, Cliterary Salon, came roaring into 2019 with our first-ever East Bay show. We were hosted by the Royal Nonesuch Gallery and we had a fantastic lineup of writers. Co-producer Maggie Tokuda-Hall emceed for us and wrote unique haiku to introduce each of us to the waiting crowd. Here’s the one she wrote for me:
evil Incarnate
she rises from the black soot
to tell you a tale
I continue to feel intensely proud of this show. We’ve got another one schedule for February, and we’d love to see you there. We keep ticket prices as low as we can, but you can also always message me if you’d like to attend and just don’t have the funds. I’d love to see your cackling face there. That’s our lineup in the photo up top, including co-producer Lauren Parker in her most distracting outfit. I love us so much.
I just finished writing my first book for 2019. Don’t worry, I started it a long time ago. I've been putting the last 40k words on it this month and then letting it stew for a while. When I get back from Missouri, I’m going to attack the book I wrote last fall about my cursed hometown.
Counting down to the Book of Flora, which comes out in April. She got a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. That's three for three in the Road to Nowhere trilogy, and I am satisfied.
I’m also going to be part of a new reading series called Happy Endings in San Francisco. That’s February 12th at the Makeout Room, where you are allowed to buy me drinks. I’m also in two upcoming anthologies, one on resistance called “Do Not Go Quietly,” and one about life after the end of the world. It’s called “Wastelands: The New Apocalypse.” Between those two, I’m sharing a table of contents with Carmen Maria Machado, Ken Liu, Sarah Pinsker, Seanan McGuire… whew. Good year in books already.
Why? Because I write like I’m running out of time. It is tempting, always, to outrun time. To out-write her. To outsmart her. I know that I won’t, but have always been fond of giving into temptation.
Time after time,
Meg