I want to take a second to revel in the small victories. 2018 had several awesome writing moments for me, which was quite affirming. Whether by coincidence or reward, I’ll take it.

Early in the year I was a “slushpile” reader for the WRITE CLUB Contest, and I got to read through all the fantastic 500 word submissions. I was really intrigued to see how the audience interacted with the stories once they were posted. It was a good experience, and a lot of fun.

In April, an excerpt from my 2017 Nanowrimo project was published in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival’s Literary Anthology. I attended the festival and participated in their Wanderlust Poetry tour, where accepted authors were able to see the accepted artwork and write poetry to read during the tour. My poem Confidence Talks, a response to the piece Flauntleroi, was featured on the artist Hooligan Lili’s website.

I made a wholly under-prepared presentation, Talk Sex Positively Now, at Olympic College’s Diversity Conference in June and talked about consent and sex positivity basics. I would love to improve my skills in presentations and preparations, as I enjoyed the opportunity it gave me, but I struggled to pull everything together and make it a worth while conversation.

I participated in the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest for the second year. I’ve not made it past the second round, but I’m proud of the stories and ideas I’ve come up with through their prompts. Keep My Memories and Me Too were my 2017 entries.

I attended Willamette Writers Conference in August, did a few pitches, a manuscript critique, and went to as many sessions as I could. As always, it was a wonderful experience. Ijeoma Oluo, Vivek Shraya, and Charlie Jane Anders were amongst the fantastic keynotes, and I was delighted to see more queer authors and diversity topics in the session line ups. I learned a lot from my pitches, and the critique was awesome. I came away with more knowledge and ideas on how to further my writing and my current work in progress.

I got to read Sensational Ailey at Salon of SEAF: Explore Written Erotica. It was a ton of fun visiting their new gallery space and listening to the other author’s readings.

In October, my short story Guard Crow was featured on Not A Pipe Publishing’s website as part of their #TheYearOfPublishingWomen’s short story series. It was an honor to be featured as part of their series, and I encourage you to check out their anthology “Strongly Worded Women: The Best Of the Year Of Publishing Women” which features other’s contributions to the series.

I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November, meeting 50K for the seventh year. (Out of eight but who’s counting 2016?) More on that here.

My year wrapped up with my family buying a house and moving through December, which is unquestionably awesome and lucky.

I’m excited to put more energy toward my writing, and see what I can do in 2019.