Writing Year in Review

Xposted from my other blog.

Oh man, 2015. So many ups and downs and sideways things to this year. I wish it was ending on a more positive note overall, but I suppose that would be too much to ask, and thus we arrive at mixed bag as a summation for how this year went. This will be the writing post, life post to follow. So I set out to do some rebuilding and get some work published, which I think went reasonably well.

Writing

Published this year (as me):
"A Scandalous Calculation" in The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty
"Bluebeard's Wife" in The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories
"Creatures of the Night: A Short History of Queer Horror" in Queers Destroy Horror (special issue of Nightmare Magazine) (nonfiction).
"Aging in IT" in Model View Culture (nonfiction)

Published this year as Emily L. Byrne:
"Repossession" in First: Sensual Stories of New Beginnings, edited by Cheyenne Blue
"Summer Stock" in Summer Love, edited by Harper Bliss and Caroline Manchoulas
"The Old Spies Club" in Spy Games, edited by Jillian Boyd
"Wage Slave" in Bossier: More Productive Tales of Lesbian Lust, Ladylit Publishing
"Lovely Rita, Meter Maid" in The Mammoth Book of Uniform Erotica, edited by Barbara Cardy

Forthcoming next year (so far):
"The Cask and the Amontillado" in Tales of the Unanticipated, Vol. 31
"The Further Adventures of Miss Scarlet" in Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year 20th Anniversary Edition, edited by Sacchi Green
"Toads, Diamonds and the Occasional Pearl" in The Princess's Bride, edited by Sacchi Green

Cons and related events in 2015:
Had my first GOH appearance as Editor Guest of Honor at Arcana 45.
Did panels and readings at Marscon, AWP, the Nebula Awards Weekend, CONvergence, Diversicon and Sirens.
Did an author Koffee Klatch and the MinnSpec Local Author Showcase, both with the fine folks at the Minnspec Meetup

Miscellaneaous:

Served as a writing award judge
Added to and reformatted my Old(er) Women in SF/F Bibliography –

Part 1 and Part 2

My thoughts on “Tragic Queer Narratives,” “An Appreciation of Suzette Haden Elgin”  and “Tanith Lee: Where to Start Reading” got some attention.

Queen of Swords Press:
Things learned this year: everything takes more time than I hope/think it will, including this post.

I have an LLC and a spiffy logo so things are becoming official. Trademark app for the name is signed, contracts are getting drafted. Domain is purchased, website is planned, several projects are underway or under consideration and I’m interviewing a new business accountant today. All things which I thought would be done back in September/October. But, hey progress.


Upcoming for 2016, so far:

Joint presentation on “Aging and Accessibility in IT” at the GoogleDev Conference

Two workshops at The Loft Literary Center (if they carry)

A presentation at the U. of MN on older women in science fiction and fantasy (barring unforeseen class cancellations)

Cons: Arisia in Boston, Au Contraire in New Zealand (! NZ is a go, waiting to hear from the con), CONvergence (Mpls), Diversicon (Mpls), Midamerica Con II (Worldcon in Kansas City), Gaylaxicon (Mpls), Arcana (St. Paul) and TeslaCon (Middleton, WI).

Writing year in review overall: not too shabby. It has ended with a slew of rejections and getting very recently jerked around by a convention committee on a guest appearance, though, so that makes it feel more sour than it actually was. Oh well. Onward and upward and all that.  Here’s hoping that 2016 is a terrific writing and editing and related year for us all!