looking back on 2024.

a quick year-end wrap-up.

This season of life has been a busy one—I have felt chaotically out of sorts and lacking in a routine over the past month or so—but I still want to take a moment and acknowledge 2024 and all the experiences it held.

Writing Achievements:

• My new novel, Select Screen, has gone through the editing process and is almost ready to become an ARC.

• I read my writing at three separate events—The Secret Nook’s surveillance-themed reading at Clio’s Bookstore in Oakland, a punk rock book launch party for Joey Truman at Tom Fruin’s art studio in Brooklyn, and I had the honor of participating in LitCrawl for the first time with The Fabulist at Shotwell’s Bar in SF.

• I spent some time editing and reworking an older piece of writing for consideration as a chapbook.

• I started working on a new and untitled manuscript.

• I got back into the habit of journaling more often.

Personal Highlights:

• I traveled to Germany, visited Munich and Frankfurt, hiked along the Rhine, and drank so much Riesling.

• I flew more than I ever have in a year and visited Palm Springs and San Diego for the first time.

• I read 55 books (but I didn’t have any specific reading goal).

• I went to lot of really good music shows and saw some of my favorite bands play.

• I saw Chicago on Broadway (a life goal) and, bonus, Ariana Madix played Roxie.

• I got a few tattoos.

• I made it a goal to swim this year, so I joined a gym with a pool.

• I played D&D with my husband and friends.

• I took a university course and received a grant writing certificate.

• I started a new job at a nonprofit in the final quarter of the year.

My Favorite Reads of 2024:

• Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin

• The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

• The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş

• Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

• Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

• Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer

• The Answers by Catherine Lacey

• A Start in Life by Anita Brookner

• Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes

• The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir

I will be marinating until February, when I feel the year really starts for me—but I hope 2025 brings some lightness and joy, enough to drown out everything else.