you & forever

“i have observed friendship as one observes high holy days: breathtakingly short, whirlwinds of intimate endeavour, frenzied carousing, the sharing of food, of wine, of honey.”

—amal el-mohtar & max gladstone, this is how you lose the time war

hello friends,

this month has been a time™. i’ve been out of town every single weekend: banff/calgary with family; boston for readercon (giant shout-out to the dream foundry’s con or bust for the funding assistance, which covered most of my flight!); chicago for a writing retreat with some pitch wars peeps; dc for lavender con this past weekend. i think it's the only summer i’ve had since before college without school or some kind of job or internship; next year i’ll have speech-pathology clinical practicum bookended by two weeks on either end (lolsob), and after that, if all goes as expected, i will once again be seeking regular (insurance-bearing) employment. or moving to australia. for now, i have been thoroughly enjoying myself despite the mass transit horrors (my plane back from boston was delayed by thunderstorms until 3 a.m.; the greyhound to chicago broke down and left everyone stranded for 2.5 hours in hundred-degree weather x wildfire smoke and for some reason i believed i would be cooler inside the vehicle) and also i’ve been too lazy to post pictures on social media. but i am perpetually astonished and grateful to have friends—who are writers and readers, no less!—all across the country; to hug them in person, if only once a year; to sit at a table beside authors whose work i admire immensely and ask them how they do it.¹ these weekends have felt sort of like undergrad again, in a way i only got a taste of in actual college, having been unnecessarily neurotic about the actual school bit (i say, like i’m not still): the wanderings through hallways and between hotel rooms just talking and eating takeout; the burst of laughter down the hall; the electric brainstorming session where you watch someone’s story crack open for them right before their eyes.

i have also still been writing!

i am working on a project that is even more of a questionable business decision than usual. i won’t say much about it, but it’s one of those things you tell querying/on-sub writers not to do. and i’m having such a great time it feels almost forbidden, the way these deathless shores and its predecessor (which died on sub) did: a wild shot in the dark, the thing you sneak away to work on when no one else is looking. the quiet solid belief that something will come of this no matter what anyone else says, because you poured yourself into it; because for years you made it your life.

recently my friend (hi clare!) introduced me to bleachers’ “you and forever” (“who could catch their breath at a crime scene […] losing track of all of god's indifference / who gets by? […] now it's just you and forever”) and, in this summer of at once so much structure and none at all, i’ve been thinking about what happens when school ends² and i may be forced to relocate yet again. i’ve been thinking about the miracle of a body carried hundreds of miles; about meeting people i haven't seen in years or maybe ever and hanging out for eight-plus hours a day in a way that feels stunningly easy and joyful despite my introversion; about how maybe this is what my writing community will look like for the foreseeable future,³ and how this, right now, is also a breath in the body that is the rest of my life.

one thing i’ve learned from publishing is that the glow of acknowledgment always dims, the high wears off, the mountain in front of you always looks bigger than the ones you’ve already climbed. (and all of this is greatly exacerbated by social media.) and so i think forever really comes down to the joy i choose every time i sit down at my laptop to rework a paragraph; the way every book is, in the end, a questionable business decision; the life that happens in the infinite expandable space that waiting for so-called breakthroughs and big moments can become.

which is to say: staring down the barrel of the next few decades—if i have the choice, if i have the chance—i hope i can continue saying yes to the things i love.

news

• anathema is open through friday!! i am the poetry editor!! if you’re a queer bipoc author, please send me your words!!

• my short story “the will of the god of music,” about classical music and chronic pain, is now free to read on podcastle, now with an excellent audio narration!

• the kids came back wrong (ya horror antho ed. wen-yi lee, bloomsbury, forthcoming fall 2027) can now be added on goodreads! i have a story here among a wildinnggg toc, i feel like i finally made the high school musical

reading

• the hands of the emperor by victoria goddard—the goblin emperor but what if maia and csevet were approaching retirement age and they went on their first vacation in their very long careers which involves snorkeling and charming the local townspeople. the bit is immaculately committed to here; it’s so rare to find a book that has precisely the combination of cinnamon roll characters, chemistry / voice / angst, and lovely prose that i’m always looking for, and to also not fear that i will finish too soon. i don’t think i’ve been this excited about a book being a chonker since like seventh grade. also there’s an entire series???? hello tbr for the next year.

• swordspoint by ellen kushner—every 3–4 months i’m like “maybe my sword era is over” and a book comes along that is like hahahahahaha nope. apparently i have a thing for hypercompetent swordperson x failed scholar with an existential crisis and a self-destructive streak, who could have guessed! (also see the everlasting by alix e. harrow, which i am extremely pleased that i got to yell about on the unpacking fascism & patriarchy panel at lavender con)

next on the tbr (i.e., mostly my library holds, which are coming in too quickly for the impending first week of school)

• the return of fitzroy angursell by victoria goddard—*cliopher voice* i will take a break soon i promise

• wife-shaped bodies by laura cranehill

• all hail chaos by sarah rees brennan

• the unselected journals of emma m. lion

listening

• or3 like everyone else, especially “stupid song,” “honeybee,” and “expectations.” if anyone wants a piano quintet arrangement of the first one, hmu and maybe i’ll actually finish mine

• some more friend recs! “light on” by maggie rogers, “sojourn” and “last of a dying breed” by joji, “i don’t really mind” by dj poolboi and su lee, “the parting glass” by the wailin’ jennys, “avalanche” by aimee mann

as always, thanks for reading!

1  this includes the panel for which i woke up at 4 a.m. the night before because anxiety and had to take double my melatonin gummies to fall back asleep, god bless modern medicine

2  if you would like to preemptively dissuade me from phd-ing, please consider this an open invitation

3  everybody come to wiscon 2027 in madison next memorial weekend, thank you (panel suggestions are open through 10/31 at the link!)