Let me be real: 2022 was another tough year in a variety of ways that I won’t get into. Lately, I’ve been trying to focus on the things I’m grateful for, rather than dwelling on the negatives. So, please allow me to highlight some of the fantastic, wonderful, and exciting things that I experienced or discovered over this last year.
1. I completed two tiny video games — What Lies Underneath and Bluebeard: An Interactive Tale. Each I constructed with different game making tools, representing different kinds of gameplay and storytelling, and I am proud of the work I did on each of them.
2. . . . and all of that hard work paid off, since the games I made earlier in the year helped me snag my first freelance work in the games industry. I am currently working a contract writer for Lost Lake Games on a project I can tell you nothing about.
And I am also working with Patrick Knisely, a solo dev in charge of One Frog Games. Together, we are working on building the story, world, and scenes, which will be incorporated into the gameplay for a platforming game tentatively titled Monochrome Heights (play the demo).
3. I sold my fourth poetry chapbook, titled Necessary Poisons, which will be published by Interstellar Flight Press later this year. I’ve been working on this collection of strange little poems since 2016, and I’m so grateful and delighted that it has finally found a home. (A cover reveal and release date will be be coming soon.)
Brom’s Slewfoot is from the start just a pretty book to look at — the cover and illustrations within (all done by Brom) being gorgeous images of the fantastical. The story itself is also richly told. Abitha is a spirited young Englishwoman balking against the constraints of the Puritan society, where she is expected to be a demure wife and do as she is told. When her husband suddenly dies under uncanny circumstances, she is left alone and without his protection. However, something else lurks in the woods, something dangerous and unsettling and beautiful — and it may be the key to either her freedom or her damnation.
15 Ways to Stay Alive by Daphne Gottlieb uses a mixture of found and original poetry to explore “broken hearts, scattered dreams, postpunk politics.” With gritty and vivid imagery, these poems explore survival and healing on both a personal and communal level.
The opening of Kealan Patrick Burke’s Sour Candy happened in a supermarket. Our main character, Phil Pendleton, goes to the supermarket and witnesses a bizarre and unsettling event involving a women and her child — one of the most uncomfortable scenes that I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. When he leaves this moment behind, Phil finds his entire world has shifted sideways, reality rewritten. The horror that follows grows increasingly terrible in the best of ways. As a novella, this is a short, quick read, but it’s one that leaves a satisfying punch.