I can count on one hand how many publications I had this year, but it was a year full of tremendous personal highlights. Mainly: M. & I became parents in January! One day when I catch my breath I will write about that journey. There's a lot to say, and I need a lot of childcare to get it done. :)

In February, Capra Review published my short story "The Samoyed." Here's an excerpt I like:

In a large glass case beside a tapestry where the beast was hunted and speared, the horn of a narwhal gleamed. “To prove the existence of unicorns, men would drag back these tusks from poor old narwhals. The horn of a unicorn would have remarkable curative qualities, they claimed, for anything from rheumatism to insomnia to impotence.” Robert and Jane walked on into other rooms. The docent’s voice trailed behind them. “You could grind it up into a powder.” Jane imagined sprinkling narwhal horn powder atop her head, imagined coarse, white sand falling through a shaft of sunlight, an iridescent shower of skittering grains.

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In June, Orion Magazine published my lyric essay "A Dill in Every Soup." Following the medieval theme of the prior excerpt, here's another excerpt I like:

“During the Middle Ages,” WebMD tells me, “people used dill to defend against witchcraft and enchantments.”

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Finally, in November, Scablands Books, based in Spokane, put out their beautiful anthology Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest, edited by Sharma Shields and Maya Jewell Zeller. I have two short fairy tales in this volume. Why not pick up a copy from Spokane's Wishing Tree Books or Auntie's? Here's an excerpt from "Moss Child":

A lace of bright lichen crept up her arms, chin, cheeks. The green crept from her limbs up the sides of the thickened tree trunks, under so much soft moss that the echoes of footsteps and animal sounds grew muffled in the gulch.

Another very bright spot of the year was chatting with Karen Russell at Hugo House's Novel Nights. Here is Italo Calvino's essay "Lightness," which is a favorite of mine and which she brought up in conversation.

There's much to look forward to in 2022. Among other things, I am especially hoping there will be a COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5. In the meantime, I'm teaching a few virtual classes for Hugo House and Atlas Obscura, January-April, both over Zoom and in an asychronous format. Maybe I will make to AWP in Philadelphia in March? As that is Lanternfish Press's homebase, it would be sweet. Then in the fall Lanternfish Press will release my second novel. Huzzah! I also have a couple short publications in the pipeline, another lyric essay and a short story.

But before all that, I am turning back to revising my third novel and sinking deeper into Maggie O'Farrell's beautiful and absorbing novel Hamnet. Hope you have a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season!

I am delighted to have a pair of short fairy tales in Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest, out now from Scablands Books! This beautiful foil-stamped anthology, edited by Sharma Shields and Maya Jewell Zeller, features an incredible roster of Pacific Northwest authors, such as Gary Copeland Lilley, Rick Barot, Shawn Vestal, Tess Gallagher, Ruth Joffre, Nicola Griffith, Kate Lebo, Elissa Washuta, and Lucia Perillo, to name just a handful, and has some wonderful illustrations as well—you can preview a couple of them, including one from my story "Moss Child," here. You can pick up a copy directly from Scablands Books, or at Atticus, Auntie's, From Here, and Wishing Tree Books in Spokane. If you're based in the Pacific Northwest, your local library might like to know about it! Here is the "Suggest a Title" form for Seattle Public Library; many library systems have similar forms.

I'm excited to have two fairy tales in Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest, a Scablands Books anthology edited by Spokane-based superheroes Sharma Shields and Maya Jewell Zeller. The (foil-stamped!) book releases November 2 (perfect season to cozy up with a book while it's drippy outside!), but discounted pre-orders are now available. Sharma shared a snippet of one of my tales on Twitter here. It's an honor to be in the same book with Elissa Washuta, Ruth Joffre, and so many other talented writers.

In the Badlands in 2009

In 2009, Michael and I drove west from Brooklyn to start a new life in Seattle. I was beginning the MFA program at the University of Washington, and we were ready for a new adventure in a region neither of us ever thought we'd live in. I documented that first cross-country drive in a list of lists here.

Nearly ten years later, we felt the pull to come back east; in April, we packed up our things and now we're in Chicago, starting the next chapter of our lives. But of course! We had to take another cross-country drive, partly retracing our steps but also seeing lots of new things. And herein is a list of lists for our second crossing:

• Mileage: Approximately 2400
• Days: 9
• Start point: Seattle
• End point: Chicago

Parting image of the Pacific Northwest: Wet roads, sopping dark evergreens.

Cities stopped in to eat and/or sleep: Ellensburg, WA; Spokane, WA; Missoula, MT; Bozeman, MT; West Yellowstone, MT; Jackson Hole, WY; Rock Springs, WY; Laramie, WY; Cheyenne, WY; North Platte, NE; Lincoln, NE; Omaha, NE; Des Moines, IA; Iowa City, IA.

Detour: Petrified Ginko National Forest

Notable Spokane radio: Developing a trauma-informed perspective, on Native America Calling

Rivers crossed: Cle Elum, Columbia, Coer D'Alene, Clark Fork, Boulder, Jefferson, Missouri Headwaters, Madison, Gallatin, Snake, Buffalo, Hoback, Little Sandy, North Platte, Medicine Bow, Laramie, South Platte, Platte, Blue, Missouri, West Nishnabotna, East Nishnabotna, South Raccoon, North Raccoon, South Skunk, North Skunk, Guernsay, Iowa, Cedar, Mississippi, Fox.

Fauna spotted: bald eagles, hawks, bison, elk, alpaca, orioles, cardinals, starlings, geese, hundreds of horses, thousands of cows.

Best smelling city: Still Bozeman, ten years later. This time, instead of pine trees, it smelled of apple and smoked pork.

Most public service announcements about meth: Still Montana, ten years later. "Ask Me How My Gun Went Off."

Most fun billboard: "Rock Creek Testicle Festival," also in Montana.

Most awe: Western Wyoming.

Aw!

Best business name: Pickle's Discount Mattress in Rock Springs, WY.

Promising overheard dialogue in Rock Springs: "I used to listen to Morning Joe, but I can't anymore. I just wanna know what's going on. Don't rant at me!" This jived with our similar feeling of watching Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC for half a minute. Maybe we can turn it all off? Then again...

Notable Nebraska radio: Christian homeschool radio on social media and the "Pakistinian-Israelite Conflict"

Scariest downtown on a Sunday: North Platte, NE, mostly boarded up and closed, save for Hometown Cash Advance, Cash n' Go, and a dollar store.

Scariest Victorian home to visit at dusk when no one's around and the horses across the street are all staring at you: Buffalo Bill's home, also in North Platte.

Notable Iowa radio: Agritalk. Regarding leaving the TPP: "Was the juice worth the squeeze?"

Happiest lunch spot: cheeky Gazali's in Des Moines, IA, where we ate garlicky chicken shawarma after several days of burgers burgers burgers.

Unicorn in our Iowa City hotel room, with an excerpt from The Glass Menagerie

Best town name: What Cheer, IA.

Most adorable stop: Iowa City.

Most roadkill: Illinois :( Intestines coiled in the street like giant fusilli. My next novel will be a horror novel.

Notable Chicago radio that filled me with glee: Cardi B. on Polish-American Radio. Brr!

Daughters of the Air is a year old today! I'm celebrating with something bubbly tonight (cider? champagne? seltzer with a spritz of lime?) and feeling grateful for all the love my strange novel has received, from the crowd of smiling faces at my launch party at the Sorrento, to hitting the bestsellers shelf at Elliott Bay Book Company, to seeing my name on the Powell's marquee, to eating my own face in cake form.After entertaining a debut author's wildest nightmares of being universally panned, or being skewered on Twitter, or just dissipating into the void unnoticed, discerning reviewers gave me such joy with their kind praise. I got a thrill learning that a library all the way in Australia owns a copy of my book. I got to travel to Portland, Spokane, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Tampa, Walla Walla, and San Francisco in support of the novel. I shared meals with book clubs and video chatted with human rights students at Pace University. Readers have told me, among other things, that the book gutted them, or made them feel seen. Hearing from readers has been the best, the best, the best. What a dream of a year.  [gallery ids="5210,5208,5209,5206,5207" type="rectangular"]

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 Would you like a copy of Daughters of the Air? You can buy it from: Your local independent bookseller * Lanternfish Press  * Barnes & Noble* Amazon * Powell’s.Did you read Daughters of the Air? Let others know what you think on Goodreads or Amazon or on Twitter or Instagram or...or...you know, word of mouth is a wonderful thing. Thank you so much!

I am pleased with how fitting it is to have an essay called "How to Finish a Novel in Only 15 Years" in The Nervous Breakdown today. Here's how it begins:

1.  Choose a horrific moment in history you know little about, in a country, Argentina, you know little about, but which seems to have troubling similarities to the here and now. Research for years. Images from the Dirty War sear into your mind.continue reading

In other news, I made a handy-dandy card with all of my upcoming out-of-Seattle readings (as always everything is on my appearances page).Huzzah!