And drive him to the grave at ninety miles an hour

This year is even harder to think about than the last one. This year is hard to think about. I am still here. I still have a website and I'm still on AO3. I wrote some poems that have not yet found homes and received several acceptances that have not yet borne fruit. That at least happens even in a normal year.

I had one new piece of fiction published, though it was an important one:

"Tea with the Earl of Twilight" in Nightmare Magazine #96, September 2020.

Slightly more new poetry, ditto:

"Capta" in Past Tense (ed. John Benson), Not One of Us Publications, January 2020.
"The Secret Language of Water" in Not One of Us #63, March 2020.
"The Trouble Over" in Uncanny Magazine #35, August 2020.
"He Should Marry the Daughter of the Angel of Death" in Strange Horizons, August 2020.
"Νυχαυγής" in Not One of Us #64, September 2020.
"Drinking from the Incantation Bowl" in Vastarien 3.2, December 2020.

A few very nice reprints:

"Imperator Noster" in The New Decameron (ed. Maya Chhabra, Jo Walton, Lauren Schiller), Patreon, April 2020.
"Where the Sky Is Silver and the Earth Is Brass" in Uncanny Magazine #34, June 2020.
"The Creeping Influences" in Shimmer: The Best Of: Speculative Fiction for a Miscreant World (ed. E. Catherine Tobler), Shimmer Publications, June 2020.

I wrote one piece of fanfiction:

"The Dead, the Wide-Eyed and the Legless" (Torchwood), September 2020.

And recorded both someone else's words and my own:

"Podcast: Poetry of the 20th Anniversary Special Issue" at Strange Horizons, August 2020.
"October Ghosts and Minor Resurrections: An Audio Excerpt" at Jeannelle Writes, October 2020.

There were two interviews:

"Quick Questions with Sonya Taaffe" by Andrea Corbin at Speculative Boston, February 2020.
"Author Spotlight: Sonya Taaffe" by Devin Marcus in Nightmare #96, September 2020.

And a contribution of miscellaneous nonfiction:

"The H Word: Formative Frights: Weird Fiction Writers on What Scared Them as Kids" by Ian McDowell in Nightmare#93, June 2020.

And I did not write anywhere near as much as I wanted for Patreon:

Repeat Performance (1947), January 2020.
Casting the Runes (1979), January 2020.
revisiting Dunkirk (2017), February 2020.
Boston Sci-Fi Marathon 45 [Miracle Mile (1989), Fiend Without a Face (1958), Spaceballs (1987), Mysterious Island (1961), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Altered States (1980), Midnight Special (2016), Night of the Comet (1984), Die, Monster, Die! (1965), Tarantula! (1955), Fast Color (2018)], February 2020.
For Those in Peril (2013), February 2020.
The Chase (1946), March 2020.
Murder by Proxy (1954), March 2020.
I Hired a Contract Killer (1990), March 2020.
The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet, 1957), April 2020.
Angels Over Broadway (1940), April 2020.
Wicked Woman (1953), April 2020.
The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967), May 2020.
The Legend of Hell House (1973), May 2020.
Pimpernel Smith (1941), May 2020.
Gallant Lady (1934), June 2020.
Libel (1959), July 2020.
Three Strangers (1946), July 2020.
The Mind Benders (1963), July 2020.
You and Me (1938), August 2020.
The Woman in Question (1950), August 2020.
Danger Signal (1945), October 2020.
The Night My Number Came Up (1955), October 2020.
To the Devil a Daughter (1976), November 2020.
The Teckman Mystery (1954), November 2020.
Advise & Consent (1962), December 2020.
The Stone Tape (1972), December 2020.
Expresso Bongo (1959), December 2020.

We improvised both our ceremony and our vows, but I still think that what rushthatspeaks and I said to one another when we married by the witness of the nighttime sea were some of this year's most important words.

It seems like an eternity now that I have ended every year wishing for a better one, for myself, for the world, for everyone I know. 2020 was not it. Let's all be here this time in the next one and maybe, finally, it would be nice, I'll be able to wish for something different then.

By still waters where dark horses and black sheep rock to the rhythm of another beat

My niece is dedicatedly staying up until midnight to watch the ball drop in Times Square and hear me blow the conch from my parents' front steps. She curled up with me and spatch on the sheepskin in front of the fire my father built; she showed me how her newest dragon falls with his wings tightly closed against his body and then snaps them out at the last minute to catch the updraft and soar away. From the way she was curling back over my arms, my mother asked if she could do a backbend, and when she didn't know how, I showed her and she did eight in a row. I braided her hair to keep it out of her face and then she wanted to see my hair in different styles. The following results were actually created by my mother, but I record them for posterity.



It is not the worst way to see the year out. A safe one, all.