It's 2025, or something: stories, reading, writing
Hi everyone,
Happy(?) new year. We survived 2024. May the same be said for 2025, which still feels like a sci-fi number. Possibly every year from here out will be sci-fi in my brain.
This newsletter is writing-focused. Let’s listen to “Writing Again”, then.
New Stories
Speaking of sci-fi, I have a weird little sci-fi-ish story out this month in Kaleidotrope. “Set Alight” asks: what if you were rescued in extremity by a spaceship made of clay, that was fired space-worthy by a literal sun, until you became something else. That's it that's the pitch!
I love weird spaceships and weird bodies and when I write sci-fi (or sci-fantasy) I pretty much always want to do both.
The issue is free to read, too. I haven’t read the rest of it (12 stories 7 poems) but there’s always a few things I like in every issue of Kaleidotrope, so I’m happy to be there :)
Later this month I have a queer folktale coming out in The Orange & Bee, stay tuned!
My Writing: 2024
I did not have much published in 2024, but it was not nothing. Two poems (that even pair well together), “You Are Entitled To Your Pain” and “Rocking By”.
I wrote three(?) new short stories, and a handful of flash fiction (ie, very short) pieces, thanks to the monthly flash contests in my writing group. I maybe did not write any poems? Hm.
I also started the guest-editing process for Infinite Branches, the queer crip round-robin poetry project. We got a great batch of submissions and nearly have the roster ready; if you’re one of our applicants, you should hear from us soon, there’s a few contractual bits and loose details we’re nailing down on the back end here. Everyone else, it’ll be a few months before we have enough round-robin completed to start posting, hang in there! It’s going to be so cool! All the poets are so cool!
And I made a folktale story prompter, inspired (loosely) by tale-type catalogs. You can play with it here.
Reading: 2024
I read somewhere between 150 and 200 books last year, probably, extrapolating from library loans and buddy reads and bought books. I don’t track my reading in an app or anything because it feels too much like a chore, and reading is something I do to relax. This year I’m going to try keeping a list of books in a notebook, which feels less chore-like, because I am very curious how much I’m actually reading now that I have good library access. (Shout-out to the Houston Public Library’s non-resident card program; $40/year will get you access to their online catalog, which is an order of magnitude larger than the Green Mountain Library Consortium.) Reading more also means reading a bit more indiscriminately, so my DNF (did not finish) list was also larger than usual. I am learning a lot about which tropes drive me up the metaphorical wall.
Books
Here are a few favorites - not necessarily books that came out last year, just ones I read in 2024.
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, an excellently weird sci-fi with layered conspiracies that does a great job walking the knife’s edge between obfuscation and certainty, in its character motivations especially. (It’s a bit sink-or-swim with in-world-jargon initially; hang in there, you’ll float.) I came for the calendrical magic-technology and stayed for the sociopolitical intrigue, and I am not usually an “intrigue” story person. I have finished the second book and am waiting on my hold for the third; I don’t usually recommend things before finishing a series but these have been so compelling so far that it’s on the list.
Saint Death’s Daughter by CSE Cooney, another fascinating magic system, and people trying to connect to each other and find a better way, despite considerable personal and generational trauma. Even when the stakes are dire this feels much more alive and human than many death-magic fantasy books, and it balances some grim violence with kindness and fun (and a lot of queers).
The West Passage by Jared Pechaček is a very strange little novel. Imagine a big pile of medieval maps and marginalia come to life. Events occur, and they may or may not be related to the protagonists’ efforts. The world is like that and sometimes stories are too. Weird, detailed, colorful ride.
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is so beautifully told it makes me as a writer want to roll around on the floor flailing and possibly crying because I wish it were mine. It’s a different kind of story than I generally tell though so that’s fine ;) This is a story that feels like it’s being whispered into your ear, with dream and myth and generational threads all looping back into each other, with vivid (if sometimes gruesome) detail and evocative, lyrical prose. I feel the need to own a physical copy so I can touch it at will.
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer is a sci-fi… romance? Kind of? Sometimes? You’ll see. It’s hard to explain without spoilers. There’s astronauts and their trip is not what it seems. I was expecting space fluff and was surprised to get something more.
Short stories and poems I have absolutely no idea how many I read and I don’t think I will try to keep track. A lot of my favorite poetry magazines have closed in the last few years, so more stories than poems, for sure. But here are some that I liked enough to bookmark (only a selection, if I gave you my year of bookmarks this newsletter would be very very long). I also enjoyed FIYAH’s Disability issue, and several full issues of Fusion Fragment.
Stories
Tooooo many to give you proper summaries for each. If you think the title sounds interesting, just give it a look.
“Home Bread” by RE Dukalsky
“Of Flowing Stone, of Liquid Gold, of Justice, Ash, and Battle” by Malda Marlys
“In the Museum of Unseen Places” by Marsh Halva
“Hands Like Gold and Starlight” by KS Walker (Black sign language queer fantasy story!!)
“The Second Drowning of Baba Rechka” by Christine Hanolsy
“I Met My Wife In the Woods” by Ash Vale (wife and woods, sure, with a side of reality glitch)
“Vermilion” by Victor Forna (or is this a poem? I’m not really sure)
“Ancestor Heart” by Naomi Day (I CRIED)
Poems
(Based on the preponderance of it in my bookmarks, if you like my taste, read Strange Horizons weekly.)
“Aviary” by Kailee Pedersen
“Dad’s Recipe for Never-Keeping” by Anne Liberton got me right in my personal feels
“Speaking Tree” by Joy Harjo
“What Beautiful Heavens These” by Kaya Skovdatter went several unexpected lovely places
…I read a lot (and very fast) and there’s so much good genre work out there, folks.
Let’s call this one here.
Best wishes for 2025, whatever the heck that brings us. (We will save thoughts about the national and global landscape for another time.) Take care of yourselves and each other. We survive together. Make art. Stay warm. Share food. The light comes back around again.
Love,
Toby
PS: oh ok one more thing. I shared my new lime-juniper linzer cookie recipe on Patreon! And as of this draft, I’m $1 from hitting $100/month over there. Do you wanna be the magic patron? And get a recipe? Yum??