stories (mine) of 2013

I've left this blog cold and unattended for a long while. A long while in which many things happened and I acquired a taste for the sort of panicked mania that is brought on by working on something with equal amounts of passion and fear. 

(More about this one day, maybe. Sharp & Fine put on a show that put me through the wringer and that I loved to pieces. It was called Queen of Knives and adapted from Neil Gaiman's poem of the same name. Pretty pictures HERE.)

So, 2013: the year of frequent passion and terror. And, somehow, also the first year I've ever had more than one story published. I had exactly one more than one--and for someone who finishes a story only rarely due to laziness and frequent distraction, having two come out in one year seems incredibly indulgent--and I am going to savor that fact for a little moment, feel very queenly and pleased with myself, before returning to the world of dance and passions and, hopefully, a bit less fear.

SHORT STORIES (MINE) OF 2013

The Manticore, the Mermaid, and Me (in Unnatural Creatures, ed. by Neil Gaiman and Maria Dahvana Headley, April 2013). A story about two young people who are very dear to each other, but who can't quite seem to see the same thing at the same time. Also, a story about a natural history museum, monsters, an overheated summer, and overheated hearts. Indulges my obsessions with rogue taxidermy and awkward transformations.

Because of this story, I have an email thread in which Neil asks whether I have a story he might like and to which I reply, in the wee hours of the morning, by calling Neil and Maria the cat's pajamas, making the unrelated declaration that "I HATE LOVE," and blaming all email typos on a slew of French 75s.

Eating the Pomegranate (Electric Velocipede, December 2013). A story about things that I don't normally write stories about: sisters, strange fixations on appetite, Persephone. Also, a story about the things I'm always writing about: ghosts, disasters, people leaving. The people in this story are mostly unhappy, the kind of people I'd find a drag to be around if they were real, but who somehow became bizarrely inescapable when I made them up. I told myself, very specifically, that I didn't want to write about Persephone (I mean, how annoying is she, with her whiff of piteous manipulation?), but, apparently, I couldn't help myself.

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This is what I look like after a year in which I have been very, very excited and equally nervous for a long time (and, it seems, incapable of scheduling a haircut). I think I am trying to look intense. My friend Lauren made a Marat/Sade comment. I have since made friends with my hairbrush again.

Cheers, 2013.