Hi, hello! I’m Courtney. You’re probably here because you heard about my debut fantasy novel​. Or maybe you liked my ​cozy horror audio drama series​ and wanted to learn what else I’m up to. Or, hey, maybe you opened a dusty book in a haunted library and found yourself peering down at this message. Whatever the case, welcome.

As the last days of February slip away, small signs of winter’s end are cropping up here in the woods of Vermont. Temperatures are beginning to climb above freezing and the warmth brings out damp notes of sap and bark and awakening loam. Soon enough, it will be mud season. Trees will begin to consider budding. Snowdrops and crocuses will erupt from the sodden earth. The sun will linger, longer and longer. Color will return to the monochrome world.

Can you tell I’m very ready for spring? This far north, we’ve got at least another month (if not two) before we’re fully there.

One cool thing about all this snow is that it makes manifest all the bustling comings and goings of winter visitors. I wake up some mornings to mouse trails. Opossum tracks. Strange vertebral shapes that turn out to be rabbit tracks. The branching arrows of turkey crossings. The deep cloved stamps of deer. It’s a strange delight, to glimpse what’s so often invisible. And it makes me think about all the movement in my own life nobody can see until a proverbial snowfall (deal announcement, cover reveal, story publication) highlights my steps.

We are all of us a unique forest full of invisible creatures, scampering away whether or not anyone notices we’re there. And that’s haunting and beautiful all at once.

February Updates

If I’ve kept track correctly, my friend Mona and I have released two new Unfortunately… episodes since my last update:

• It Takes Luck with M. Stevenson

• You’ll Fall Down with Saratoga Schaefer

I’ve been finding these conversations incredibly reassuring and grounding as I navigate debut year. Maybe you will, too. Writing and publishing are hard and we all struggle at some point. I’m so glad our guests have been so willing to discuss the hard parts with us.

In other news, I’m taking a short break from my larger projects at the moment, because I’m sitting with some feedback before diving into another round of novella revisions and something isn’t clicking yet with my magic embroidery novel rewrite.

In the meantime, I’m working on a short story from the POV of a very intrepid dog. Here are the first two lines:

The sniffs were particularly sniffulous that day. Hints of scamper scurry scurry in the tall grass and a big splash of swoop squawk snatch in the tangled roots of the old apple tree.

February Recommendations

Listen

If you are, like me, perpetually online, you’ve probably heard Hostile Government Takeover and its various remixes (one of which is linked). May I suggest another song that captures the cognitive dissonance of this moment? Jolie Holland's Orange Blossoms is a contemplation of nature’s beauty and a rallying cry to take action against fascist regimes and the literal burning of the world. It's also about bats and cactuses, with all of Holland’s characteristic lyricism.

Play

I’m not much of a gamer, not because I don’t enjoy games but because I hyper fixate too easily. I sit down to play a little, then five hours have passed and my dogs are mad at me. But I’m curious about games as a form of storytelling, so I’ve been cautiously exploring them again after at least a decade staying away.

All of that to say, I recently played Grunn, which is a horror gardening game with eleven possible endings. I tried it because someone compared it to Dredge, which I absolutely loved. Grunn is the scarier game of the two, but I really enjoyed it––jump scares and all. (And, yes, predictably, I fell right into the hyper fixation void.)

Thanks for wallowing with me,

Courtney