Hello 2020! For the first day of the new year, I took a falconry lesson on a cliff in La Jolla, California. A lanner falcon swooped through the air and landed on my arm while the ocean crashed below and paragliders took off overhead. Not a bad way to start the year.
2019 was a strange, dramatic year, but a lot of great things happened. I sold my first novel, Right Back Where We Started From, which is coming out in 2021. I published a lot, including pieces in Longreads, Alta, and Poetry Foundation. I contributed to an article on the Kincade Fire that was on the front page of The Washington Post. I was awarded a Discovered Awards for Emerging Literary Artists and a residency with Hypatia-in-the-Woods. My essay on George Sterling was a notable in The Best American Essays 2019 and my short story Drought was included in 2019 Best Small Fictions. On top of that, I traveled all around the United States, including New York, California, Michigan, Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois, and Hawaii. Whew!
It’s nice to finish off the decade strong. Here’s to an even more exciting and prosperous 2020.