2025: Year in Review

2025 felt like a year of calamity. Each month, my husband and I had to deal with another disaster or heartache. We finally got a cellphone after realizing we could no longer stream without one (which lead to panic as our ISP shut off our service without consent). A family member was hospitalized for a few days at the beginning of the year. I received a new diagnosis that requires ongoing maintenance shortly after my 40th birthday. We lost a long-time neighbor and friend around Thanksgiving. On and on.

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I had to reject a contract from Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in October. I didn't realize the publication had new owners with a (in my opinion) predatory boilerplate contract. They barely budged when I tried to negotiate and, though they claim they worked with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association to create a fair starting agreement, I have trouble believing they changed anything at all. I waited for years to see one of my poems in Asimov's; it's now a dream that will never come true.

The writing group I attended at the local library is no longer the same. I haven't been there in over a year. I miss it, but it's geared more for novelists than anyone else now. I also just don't feel as welcome at the library proper since our board made... improvements.

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Submissions by the numbers:

Submissions sent - 53

Rejections - 37

Acceptances - 10 (eighteen poems, four flash fiction pieces)

Spectral Realms: (Toc only)

The Disappointed Housewife: Three poems

SpecPoVerse: Three poems 

Micromance: "Until the Stars"

Schlock: "Ten Minutes After the Summoning"