Well, I am at least.

I don’t have too much to say about the intervening time between my last post in March of 2020 and today. I spent most of that time like many others who already had a work-from-home day job – indoors and away from others. I started wearing masks everywhere, got more houseplants and pairs of leggings, and got vaccinated as soon as I got the green light to from work. I also read more than I usually do, played more guitar and video games, did a variety of horror-themed puzzles, had conference call movie nights and virtual hangs with friends, and started lifting at home and running outside instead of at the gym.

Eventually I was able to start writing again after the initial shock of everything faded back into the general background baseline anxiety of existence.

In happy news, my short story, “Small Turn of the Ladder” was published in Analog in time for my 39th birthday. It’s the first story I’ve sold in quite a while, one I first wrote years ago when I was in the midst of the worst of all my autoimmune garbage and chronic c. difficile infections. It was meant to be about the coming antibiotic crisis and the psychological weight of coping with an incurable disease and a possibly fatal infection.

I also completely finished my long-term Tor.com Science and the Fantastic column. I believe it came in at around 40k words total, and covered over 150 years of history across science fiction and biology. I’m pretty proud of it, and it gave me an excuse to read a lot of older science fiction I might never have thought to look at otherwise.

I’ve got exciting news to share as well – I’ve got contracts signed on what I hope will be another long-lived essay series – this time for Asimov’s! It’ll start up next year and explores different thematic aspects of classic science fiction movies. I’ve already got two and a guest editorial in the can: the first about George Méliès’ 1902 silent film A Trip to the Moon and the third about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. The second essay, currenlty in progress, will be about Frankenstein, which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the research for. The first essay and the editorial is currently scheduled to appear in the Spring 2022 issue. Expect further announcements here and on Twitter as I have them!

Finally, I’ve got a lot of stories making the rounds at different markets at the moment – a healthy mix of revisited older and newer ones I’ve finished in the past year. I’m in the middle of writing a few more, which I’m hoping to finish by the time this last essay gets submitted, since I want to spend the Winter working on a novel.

I hope you’ve all been as well as can be expected, are fully vaccinated, and have plans to get your annual flu shot in the next month or two.