You'll never spend a season in hell if you lie in bed all day

[sovay]

So the thing that becomes immediately obvious to me when I look at my year-end summary for 2016 is the degree to which the health issues which were identified in February and are only just now beginning to resolve affected almost every aspect of my writing. The second half of the year was scarily thin in new fiction and poetry; it was actually worse than 2006, the year my life up to then fell apart. Nonetheless, the way 2016 turned out, I think I am going to count anything published as an active victory over the forces of violence and entropy.

There was new fiction:

"Skerry-Bride" in Devilfish Review #16, February 2016.
"The Trinitite Golem" in Clockwork Phoenix #5 (ed. Mike and Anita Allen), April 2016.
"The Choices of Foxes" in Not One of Us #55 (ed. John Benson), April 2016.
"All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts" in Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror (ed. Lynne Jamneck), June 2016.
"Imperator Noster" in Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place (ed. Jaym Gates), July 2016.

There was new poetry:

"The Lost Aphrodite" in The Cascadia Subduction Zone 6.1, January 2016.
"Anybody That Looked Like That" in Go Now (ed. John Benson), January 2016.
"The Parable of the Albatross" in Stone Telling #13: Hope, January 2016.
"For Saint Valentine, on the Occasion of His Martyrdom" in Goblin Fruit #36: Winter 2016, February 2016.
"Men Who Aren't Crazy" in The Cascadia Subduction Zone 6.2, April 2016.
"In a Funny Kind of Way" in Polu Texni 4/25/16, April 2016.
"Sudden Death" in Through the Gate #10, May 2016.
"The Anniversary" in Through the Gate #10, May 2016.
"'Лондонский маленький призрак'" in Through the Gate #10, May 2016.
"Phliasian Investigations" in Spelling the Hours: Poetry Celebrating the Forgotten Others of Science and Technology (ed. Rose Lemberg), August 2016.
"A Gun and a Boy (Le Cercle Rouge)" in inkscrawl #10, August 2016.
"The Ghost Marriage" in Uncanny Magazine #12, September 2016.
"Ghost Ships of the Middlesex Canal" in Not One of Us #56, September 2016.
"At the Meyerhold Theatre" in Through the Gate #19, October 2016.
"A Death of Hippolytos" in The Cascadia Subduction Zone 6.4, October 2016.
"The Other Lives" in The Cascadia Subduction Zone 6.4, October 2016.
"Vocatio" first appeared in Twisted Moon #1, October 2016.
"About Building" in Through the Gate #23, December 2016.

There were even some reprints, of which I am very proud:

"Upon the Land, On the Sea" in Angels of the Meanwhile: Poetry and Prose in Support of Pope Lizbet (ed. Alexandra Erin), April 2016.
"Chez Vous Soon" in Sirenia Digest #124 (ed. Caitlín R. Kiernan), June 2016.
"Exorcisms" in An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassifiables (ed. Rose Lemberg), July 2016.
"The Clock House" in Spelling the Hours: Poetry Celebrating the Forgotten Others of Science and Technology (ed. Rose Lemberg), August 2016.
"And Black Unfathomable Lakes" in The Museum of All Things Awesome and That Go Boom (ed. Joanne Merriam), August 2016.
"When Can a Broken Glass Mend?" in Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction (ed. A.M. Dellamonica and Steve Berman), November 2016.

And a small quantity of fanfiction, none of which I was expecting to write:

"Not a Tame Lion" (Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis), September 2016.
"ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον" (Benjamin January, Barbara Hambly), December 2016.

I had no published interviews this year (I did one by phone, but it won't air until—I can still say this—next year), but Ghost Signs (2015) garnered some very fine reviews:

Rich Horton for Locus, January 2016.
Liz Bourke for Strange Horizons, January 2016.
Lev Mirov for Stone Telling, January 2016.

Honestly, I think my major intellectual achievement this year was the writing I did for my Patreon:

Too Late for Tears (1949), January 2016.
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), January 2016.
Despicable Me (2010), January 2016.
Fast Workers (1933), January 2016.
Cain and Mabel (1936), February 2016.
Boston Sci-Fi Marathon 41 [Starman (1984), Himmelskibet (1918), Blade Runner (1982), High Treason (1929), Ex Machina (2015), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Bride of Finklestein (2015), Pitch Black (2000), Big Ass Spider! (2013), Never Let Me Go (2010), Donovan's Brain (1953), They Live (1988), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)], February 2016.
Mr. Skeffington (1944), February 2016.
The Guns of Navarone (1961), Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), Hail, Caesar! (2016), February 2016.
Crack-Up (1946) and Act of Violence (1948), March 2016.
Moonrise (1948), March 2016.
Belladonna of Sadness (1973) and The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015), March 2016.
Gay Purr-ee (1962), March 2016.
Phaedra (1962), April 2016.
Johnny Eager (1942), April 2016.
The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015), May 2016.
Seven Sweethearts (1942), May 2016.
Fighting Men: Baptism of Fire (1943), May 2016.
Madame Bovary (1949), May 2016.
World for Ransom (1954), June 2016.
Macao (1952) and Green Dolphin Street (1947), June 2016.
The Prowler (1951), June 2016.
Santa Fe Trail (1940), June 2016.
Criss Cross (1949), July 2016.
thoughts on the femme fatale, July 2016.
thoughts on film noir, July 2016.
A Thousand Clowns (1965), August 2016.
Detour (1945), August 2016.
The Big Combo (1955), August 2016.
HFA Night Train Marathon [L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat (1896), Twentieth Century (1934), Night Mail (1936), Night Train to Munich (1940), The Little Train Robbery (1905), The Narrow Margin (1952), Nayak (1966), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)], September 2016.
The Killing (1956) and Born to Kill (1947), September 2016.
The Ten Commandments (1956), September 2016.
Demon (2015) and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), October 2016.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962), October 2016.
Red Hot Tires (1935), October 2016.
My Son, the Hero (1943) and Lady with a Past (1932), October 2016.
Princess Caraboo (1994), November 2016.
The Gang's All Here (1943), December 2016.
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), December 2016.
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and Dames (1934), December 2016.
Lady Be Good (1941), December 2016.
Possessed (1947), December 2016.
The Spy in Black (1939), December 2016.

And I will do what I can as soon as I can do it to make up for the associated obligations on which I fell behind. I feel in may ways as though I am just getting my brain back for the first time in months if not a year. It's just as well; I think I'm going to need it.

Happy New Year. Let's do what we can to make 2017 something we want to set slightly less on fire and shove off a skyscraper. Tonight derspatchel and I are going to hear the bells ring.

Comments

[kore]

That is a hell of a lot of good work! also look at all those juicy film reviews. You did well, esp with severe chronic illnesses wrapped around your neck like a Keeper from Babylon 5.

[sovay]

That is a hell of a lot of good work! also look at all those juicy film reviews.

Thank you! Enjoy any that are new to you! It is good to know that people are reading.

You did well, esp with severe chronic illnesses wrapped around your neck like a Keeper from Babylon 5.

Seriously, thank you. That is a dreadfully apt image and at least, unlike the Regent of Centauri Prime, I seem to have survived its removal.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Hooray for getting your brain back. Happy New Year. May it be a happy one (redundant though that may be).

[sovay]

Hooray for getting your brain back. Happy New Year. May it be a happy one (redundant though that may be).

No, I wish you the same: happy New Year's Day, and may 2017 be despite all odds (if we have to fight for it, it's worth it) a happy year. I am very much in favor of my brain sticking around.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I just finished watching a special on movies with song and dance on TCM and when they were covering the tap portion, they showed a lot of Black cinema that I have never seen before... the fluidity of the dance and the crispness of the tap.... I wish that TCM or some other channel would show those pictures... not just excerpts.

[sovay]

I just finished watching a special on movies with song and dance on TCM and when they were covering the tap portion, they showed a lot of Black cinema that I have never seen before... the fluidity of the dance and the crispness of the tap.... I wish that TCM or some other channel would show those pictures... not just excerpts.

Do you remember the titles of any of the movies or the names of any of the dancers? I linked some of the Berry Brothers and the Nicholas Brothers recently, but they were flash dancers, which was a very specific form of tap: there are many, many other people I have not heard of.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I dont remember their names, I was in such awe of their dancing, that I forgot to write amything down to remind me... I guess I was going to look up Black Cinema tap dancers at some point...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your writing accomplishments always are prodigious in my eyes.

Thank you, tangentially, for this list, all in one place, of your Patreon reviews. I often speak of them, and this will make it easy to search for particular ones!

Not to be a noodge, but. . .

[negothick.livejournal.com]

As I've said before, your film writing goes way beyond the genre of "review" and "fan-writing." You could collect these pieces, make some sort of order out of them (noir, fantastika, spies. . .whatever), and write a book proposal for McFarland. They publish tons of film and media books, some of which is more archival than analytical. Check it out. . .
Check out their titles in this area here http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/searches/browse_all_categories2.php?cat=Performing+Arts%2FFilm

and here's the submission guidelines: http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/authors/becoming-an-author/

Re: Not to be a noodge, but. . .

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

True--definitely beyond simple reviewing or fan writing.

[gwynnega]

That is a great idea.

[sovay]

That is a great idea.

Do you know anything about putting together nonfiction book proposals? I've never tried it before.

[gwynnega]

I've never tried it either, but Karen Romanko just published a book with McFarland. She might have some tips about approaching them.

[sovay]

I've never tried it either, but Karen Romanko just published a book with McFarland. She might have some tips about approaching them.

I must know someone with her contact information—lesser_celery has published poems of hers before. Thank you. I'll try asking.

Re: Not to be a noodge, but. . .

[sovay]

You could collect these pieces, make some sort of order out of them (noir, fantastika, spies. . .whatever), and write a book proposal for McFarland. They publish tons of film and media books, some of which is more archival than analytical. Check it out. . .

I know of them: they published the only biography of Van Heflin that currently exists. (I don't yet own it. At present I covet. Should it cross my path, the internet will hear about it.) I will think seriously about this as a project for the year.

[sovay]

Your writing accomplishments always are prodigious in my eyes.

Thank you. This year felt very bare from inside.

Thank you, tangentially, for this list, all in one place, of your Patreon reviews. I often speak of them, and this will make it easy to search for particular ones!

You're welcome! I've tagged this entry, too, for easier finding re Patreon.