life goal: infamous recluse
A new year, and here we are. Welcome. There's fresh bread from the oven, with which I have just eaten a slathering of local maple butter, and with which I will later make a deeply hedonistic grilled cheese.
I am, at this moment (but not, notably, this moment), writing from a small house in a small place in the middle of Vermont, a smallish state that borders my equally small commonwealth-- but has mountains that (unlike the hulking New Hampshire peaks that sneak up close behind and threaten you lightly for your loose change) stand distant across wide valleys, like kings and queens of wardrobe worlds with considerably more concerns than me, in this small house in this small place with worries much smaller than whatever makes these mountains look quite like *that.*
It's an odd time of year, gentle readers, and an odd mood I find myself in. While the calendar in no way suggests it, the air seems set for turning from one year to the next-- a book closing, another opening. I feel like I'm reviewing the reference list of last year, paging through the index to see what, after all, warranted a listing.
At the time of writing this note, it was May, it was 77 degrees outside, there was a breeze, and I smelled budding lilac. It was so... much, in such a huge and beautiful way.
So as to take advantage of my own natural inclinations when it comes to composition, and to deter the dreaded destruction of my drafts by Patreon's whims, I will be starting to mirror the Minor Hours issues over on Tumblr, where they will come out at some point later than what appears here or in subscribers' emails.
Holy crackersnacks, I was invited to be a panelist at Worldcon! This year it's being hosted by Discon III from December 15-19, 2021, in Washington, DC. Paraphrasing their site bio a little, Worldcon is the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS); it was first held in 1939 and, with a pause for... Continue Reading →
Check out the story I wrote this year that's eligible for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and any other award your heart sees fit to nominate it for.
I have come to a realization, which is as follows: I have not been writing this magazine, because with every issue I feel compelled to both maintain the previous issue's style and also, somehow, expand, nautilus-like, into further whimsy. Having done this maintenance, this expansion, I am then confronted with starting the next issue-- and I look down the issue's long dark hall, where every door is one I must open and examine and write out before I can shuffle on to the next. The exit sign will not turn on until every last room has been described in some way that gets closer and closer to the Platonic ideal of parodic microzine excellence, which is rather a lot to expect from basic electrical wiring.
Join me at Readercon (August 13-15, 2021), which'll be online and running for the low weekend price of $25 this year. Join me at Readercon (August 13-15, 2021), gone virtual and running for the low weekend price of $25 this year. It's a conference on imaginative literature that focuses almost exclusively on the written work, and I've loved it for years.
Strangely, it turns out that my capacity for original words does eventually reach a limit. I've been working on a (very late) chapter for my editor, and the whole of my thought has been turning toward it, even while the weather improves, new people are met, and the housing market turns weird. Things I'd like to spend time noodling out here are instead being transmuted into fiction.
Katherine Crighton 