11 books I'm excited to read in 2024

I love reading, and I do a lot of it. I’m the rare person who gets sleepy while reading, so I read every night to help myself get to sleep. If you’d like to see what I read in 2023, you view those books here. I read all of the books I was looking forward to in 2023 (and many more) , with the exception of “Right Hand” by Natalie Zina Walschots, only because it hasn’t come out yet.

A lot of my fellow writers are releasing new books in 2023, and these are the ones I’m excited to read, plus two more from authors I don’t know (Gabe Cole Novoa and Heather Fawcett). I hope you’ll check out everything listed below.

1. “Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix,” Gabe Cole Novoa (Jan. 16): “A trans boy searches for a future―and a romance―in which he can live and love openly as himself in this heartrending young-adult reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, part of the Remixed Classics series.”

2. “Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands,” Heather Fawcett (Jan. 16): (I read the first book in this series in 2023, and it was one of my favorites of the year): “When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late, in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.”

3. “Breath by Breath,” Stephanie Wildman (Jan 23): “In this bedtime story, twins Flor and Roberto wonder how they can possibly go on an adventure at the same time as they go to sleep. Big brother Luis guides them in an exercise through their bodies, from the top of their heads to the tips of their toes. Following the gentle inhale and exhale of their breath, Flor and Roberto find love and calm inside and all around them as they drift off to sleep. Bonus content provides direction for mapping your own body scan.” Also, don’t miss Stephanie’s books “Ghost Writer” in September and “Miri’s Moving Day” in November.

4. “Tough Broad,” Caroline Paul (March 5): I’m so lucky that three books by authors I love and admire are releasing on my birthday! “Caroline Paul has always filled her life with adventure: From mountain biking in the Bolivian Andes to pitching a tent, mid-blizzard, on Denali, she has never been a stranger to the exhilaration the outdoors can hold. Yet through it all, she has long wondered, Why aren’t women, like men, encouraged to keep adventuring into old age? Tough Broad is her quest to understand not just how to live a dynamic life in a changing body, but why we must.”

5. “The Translator’s Daughter,” Grace Loh Prasad (March 5): “Born in Taiwan, Grace Loh Prasad was two years old when the threat of political persecution under Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship drove her family to the United States, setting her up to become an “accidental immigrant.” The family did not know when they would be able to go home again; this exile lasted long enough for Prasad to forget her native Taiwanese language and grow up American. Having multilingual parents—including a father who worked as a translator—meant she never had to develop the fluency to navigate Taiwan on visits. But when her parents moved back to Taiwan permanently when she was in college and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she recognized the urgency of forging a stronger connection with her birthplace before it was too late. As she recounts her journey to reclaim her heritage in The Translator’s Daughter, Prasad unfurls themes of memory, dislocation, and loss in all their rich complexity. The result is a unique immigration story about the loneliness of living in a diaspora, the search for belonging, and the meaning of home.”

6. “Island Rule,” Katie M. Flynn (March 5): “An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more. Through each of these twelve interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places, and even realities. From a powerful and “radiant” (Kassandra Montag, author of After the Flood) new literary voice to be reckoned with, this collection will stay with you after turn the final page.”

7. “Relative Strangers,” A.H. Kim (April 2): “From the acclaimed author of A Good Family comes a timely spin on Sense and Sensibility, a twenty-first-century family drama featuring two half-Korean sisters, their ex-hippie mother, multiple messy love affairs and one explosive secret that could ruin everything.”

8. “Sing, I” Ethel Rohan (April 15): “Inside Half Moon Bay, a sparkling California coastal town, Ester Prynn is dulled and diminished by struggles with work, money, marriage, her senile father, a troubled teenage son, and old guilt she can’t assuage. When a masked gunman robs the convenience store where Ester works, he upends her fraught life and propels her toward passions buried, like singing; desires discovered, like a same-sex infatuation; and wrongs righted, like bringing the violent assailant to justice. But as the armed robber commits new crimes and continues to evade capture, the trauma from the holdup climbs, threatening Ester’s newfound delights and longings and forcing her to contend with her burning regrets and what-ifs. In the reckoning between Ester and these growing, molten upsets, she’s faced with enormous choices and must determine what and who can bring her to her best life.”

9. “Portrait of a Woman,” Bridget Quinn (April 16): “Discover the story of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard—a long-ignored artist and feminist of eighteenth-century France—in this imaginative and illuminating biography from an award-winning writer.”

10. “Your Presence is Mandatory,” Sasha Vasilyuk (April 23): “A riveting debut novel, based on real events, about a Ukrainian World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them.”

11. “Karaoke Queen,” Dominic Lim (Sept. 17): “Rising star Dominic Lim presents a joyous queer second-chance romance about a man who must work with his ex to save their beloved karaoke bar, perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Alexis Hall.”

If you’d like to see everything on my “want to read” list, you can find that here.

Doing book events as a disabled and neurodivergent person

When my book “San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History” came out at the end of August, I was lucky to be able to do lots of events around the city to promote it. Over the course of two months, I had six “in conversation”-style events and three readings, plus a couple of podcast recordings, and most of them were in person. 

Most authors will tell you that the book-publicity cycle is exhausting and grueling, even when it’s also a lot of fun — after all, you’re getting to talk in depth about a topic you’re really passionate about. But I also have chronic pain/illnesses and sensory sensitivities (and I’m an introvert), so I knew this process would probably be very hard on me. 

Before planning my schedule, I paid a lot of attention to what other chronically ill and/or neurodivergent authors have advised, and I did my best to create a schedule that would work for me. I’d like to share a little of what I learned ahead of time, what I did, and how it went. 

Johanna Hedva is an artist and musician, and the author of several books, as well as an outspoken advocate for accessibility and disability justice. Their disability access rider, which creates an accessible space for themself as well as for their audience, can be found here. 

A couple of items in Hedva’s rider stood out to be as potentially very useful in my circumstance. They write, “I require at least 48 hours after arriving to acclimate before I can participate in any public events. I’ll need to fly home the day after the event.” I wasn’t flying anywhere, but this tipped me off to the idea that I should try to book a day of recovery/rest after each event, where possible. In practice, it turned out that I really needed to rest the day before (and day of) the event, plus two days after. 

Ultimately, I tried to schedule my events about a week apart. On top of my personal health needs, I’m a partner and a mom (of a kid who started high school two weeks before my book launched!), and I needed to stay on top of those responsibilities as well. 

For the most part, that schedule allowed me enough time between events to recover and feel ready for the next one. It also allowed me, in one case, to take on an additional event that was very worthwhile, in terms of getting word out about the book. On the downside, I wound up with three events that week — and it was the same week my cat had to be hospitalized after eating something toxic. It was rough!

Hedva also writes, “I require all of the below to be confirmed and agreed upon by contract at least three weeks before the event takes place. Trust me, the more time there is to work out all the logistics, the better.” Inspired by this, I set up my event schedule fairly far in advance, so that once I was in the thick of things, I would know where to show up and when, and not have to worry about logistics anymore. One event was still in flux up until about a week beforehand, and another popped up just a couple of weeks before it happened. That was an extra cognitive burden, but having my schedule mostly set far in advance really helped. 

For one event, I had been to the venue before and knew that the overhead LED lighting might give me a migraine. I asked the event coordinator if they could work with me to lower the lighting, and they did. 

Another helpful guide for me is the one that author Katherine May (“Wintering,” “Enchantment”) put together, particularly to protect her needs as an autistic person. I find almost all of her accommodations for online and in-person events to be incredibly helpful for me. 

While I didn’t specifically request any of May’s suggestions from the venues where I appeared, they were important for me to keep in mind as I decided when to show up before an event, whether to mingle or rest beforehand, and so on. Unlike May, I find that showing up a bit early is helpful for me, particularly if I don’t already know a venue well, so that I can get acclimated to the space before other people begin arriving. 

Even with all these plans in place, I was still exhausted for a day or two after each event, I dealt with some brain fog and lack of executive function after events, and my throat was usually sore from reading and talking more than usual. In a couple of cases, I really should have asked for a chair at the book-selling table, so that I could sit while selling books and talking to readers. If I stand for long periods, I often get light-headed and my legs will hurt, but I sometimes got so caught up in things that I wasn’t paying attention to my body. 

And, after all that, it took about a month for me to get back to baseline energy levels, where I felt like I could do new work again. 

May writes, “Not everyone will be able to ask for accommodations like these — and also … I won’t always get them, despite asking. But I think it’s important to use my relative privilege to ask anyway. Hopefully it will begin to raise awareness amongst journalists and organisers of the kind of needs autistic people have.” 

I wish that I felt like I could have gone further and requested the kinds of accessibility that Hedva and others require, such as sign language interpreters online and in person, and live captioning for online events. But none of my events were paid, and only one was ticketed, to cover the cost of renting the venue. And currently, most venues don’t have the costs of interpreters or captioners built into their event budgets. They should, but we’re not there yet.

I’m grateful that I was mostly able to set up a schedule that was sustainable and accessible for me. I hope this is helpful for others who deal with similar differences and limitations. 

My next book: "San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History"

You're looking at Sen. David Broderick's monument (the pointy one in the far distance) in Laurel Hill Cemetery, near where the Trader Joe's on Masonic Avenue  is today. In the foreground is Calvary Cemetery, on the slopes of Lone Mountain. Credit: Lawrence & Houseworth, publisher, Library of Congress.

I’m excited to share that my next book, "San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History,” will be out August 28, 2023, with The History Press. I’ve been working on this book for almost two years, digging through newspaper articles, history books, master’s theses, archaeological documents and photo archives to tell this story, and I’m excited to be able to share it with you all soon.

Here’s the info from my publisher: “San Francisco is famous for not having any cemeteries, but the claim isn’t exactly what it seems. In the early 20th Century, the city relocated more than 150,000 graves to the nearby town of Colma to make way for a rapidly growing population. But an estimated fifty to sixty thousand burials were quietly built over and forgotten, only to resurface every time a new building project began. The dead still lie beneath some of the city’s most cherished destinations, including the Legion of Honor, United Nations Plaza, the Asian Art Museum and the University of San Francisco. Join author Beth Winegarner as she maps the city's early burial grounds and brings back to life the dead who've been erased.”

Caroline Paul, author of the New York Times bestseller “The Gutsy Girl,” writes: “Beth Winegarner’s book traces the history of San Francisco through its forgotten cemeteries: their beginnings, their relocations, and the bodies that often remain. I thought I knew my beloved city but I wasn’t looking deep enough – literally. Unique and eye-opening, I won’t be able to walk these San Francisco streets without wondering what may still be buried just underfoot."

The book includes a foreword by Roberto Lovato, author of “Unforgetting,” in which he writes, “‘San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries’ is an act of restorative justice.”

“San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries” isn’t available for preorder yet, but you can add it to your “want to read” list on Goodreads if you follow this link. I’ll share more news about preorders, events and other news on this page for the book when I can.

Recent things I can't stop talking about

“Interview with the Vampire”

Last weekend, I finished season 1 of the new “Interview with the Vampire” series on AMC+ (I know it hasn’t aired on cable yet, so I’ll try to avoid spoilers), and it has no right being as good as it is. I read Anne Rice’s first two vampire novels when I was in my teens, and they mattered a lot to me (they still do). And, much as I love director Neil Jordan, the 1994 film adaptation disappointed me, largely because of the casting; Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas felt hideously wrong for their roles. 

This time, I couldn’t be happier with the casting. And, although the writers made substantial changes to the setting (Jazz Age New Orleans vs. 18th century), the racial dynamics of the main characters (both Louis and Claudia are Black), and the relationship between Louis and Lestat (they are romantic partners, an idea hinted at in the text but never openly depicted before), all of those changes are for the better. It’s beautiful, smart and sexy. 

I also just reread probably my favorite Anne Rice novel, “The Witching Hour,” to prepare for AMC’s adaptation, which launches in January. I’m anxious about this one; the trailer makes it look substantially different from the book, and they somehow haven’t cast anyone for a main character, Michael Curry. And I wish they’d cast Mackenzie Davis as Rowan. And for Michael? Maybe Henry Cavill or Ian Somerhalder (the latter of whom is from Louisiana). 

“Blood Upon the Snow”

It’s been almost four years since Hozier released his last album, “Wasteland, Baby.” He’s got another one cooking, but he surprised us this week by unveiling “Blood Upon the Snow,” a collab with composer Bear McCreary for the new “God of War: Ragnarok” game. Regular readers know that I fell hard for Hozier’s music last year. I discovered McCreary through his soundtrack for the Amazon “Rings of Power” series; his music is a key component, a character in its own right. And this new song brings us the best of both of them.

Hozier fans often joke that he’s some kind of fae creature, calling him Forest King or Forest Daddy. In part, this is because of how deeply his lyrics feel rooted in nature and the otherworld. As the name suggests, “Blood Upon the Snow” falls right in line with those ideas. It’s sung from the perspective of someone who has spent a lifetime surviving in nature, beautiful but harsh. There are moments where it sounds like a mournful ghazal, but the music also evokes Celtic folk and Nordic elements, including what I believe is McCreary playing a hurdy gurdy. There’s also what feels like a Russian men’s chorus. It’s sublime.

Hozier also recently released “Swan Upon Leda,” a song about women’s bodily autonomy through the ages. It’s the first taste of his next album, “Unreal Unearth,” release date yet unknown. In one verse he describes a grandmother smuggling birth control pills across the Northern Irish border, which felt of a piece with some of my other recent cultural touchstones: the final season of “Derry Girls,” and “Thin Places,” by Kerri ní Dochartaigh, about how she survived the trauma of growing up in Derry during the Troubles. Many of my ancestors came from Ireland, including Northern Ireland, in and around Derry, and I’m drawn to art that connects me to those places.

“Enter the Day”

Patrick Wolf, one of my longtime favorite musicians, dear to my heart, is finally unearthing new music for the first time in more than a decade. Today he released “Enter the Day,” a hopeful ballad about emerging from difficult times to land in the places we belong. It touches on the death of his mother as well as the landscapes of eastern Britain, along the North Sea, where he now lives. 

As with Hozier, nature is a constant companion in Wolf’s work, particularly the geography of Cornwall and other coastal climes. So much so that I could hear his music in my head when I read, this year, Katharine May’s “The Electricity of Every Living Thing.” In it, she comes to terms with her autistic mind while walking the 630-mile South West Coast Path through Devon and Cornwall. I recommended the book to Wolf a few months ago; I have been a member of his Patreon this year, where he has answered listener questions, reminisced on old photos and songs, and played monthly live concerts from his home by the sea. He sang a capella version of “Enter the Day” for us recently, and one line stuck with me more than any other: “Deep in your disorder is a sleeping symmetry.” Gorgeous. 

Alcest live at Hellfest 

I love Alcest, the French black metal/shoegaze band that sings about otherworldly encounters. I especially love seeing them live, but they haven’t come through San Francisco in several years, and live music hasn’t felt safe in Covid times anyway. They just released their live set from this year’s Hellfest, performed in June in Clisson. Seeing them again is emotional, cathartic, and transcendent. 

Lacuna Coil, “Comalies XX”

Italian metal band Lacuna Coil recently re-recorded their landmark album “Comalies.” The original is a forever classic, but the new version is fresh and alive. I love the harder riffs, and the fact that Andrea Ferro is now leaning all the way into harsh vocals. As much as I love the 2002 album, I also associate it with someone who turned out to be horribly toxic. I’m grateful for this chance to love it all over again.

'Places only hold us; they only let us in.'

I’ve just finished reading Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s memoir “Thin Places” and I can’t stop thinking about how she describes being “held” by certain places in nature. 

Her book is partly about the trauma and PTSD she suffered as a result of growing up in Derry during the Troubles, and how those experiences made it impossible for her to feel safe in most places. And it’s about how she discovered áiteanna tanaí, caol áit – “thin places” – in the landscape (which Duolingo has recently taught me is tírdhreach in Irish), where the distance between the earthly world and the world of spirit is shrunk to nothing. “They are places that make us feel something larger than ourselves, as though we are held in a place between worlds,” she writes. 

“The natural world in the wilderness on both sides of that unseen border [between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland] dragged me back to the land of the living, and it held me there,” ní Dochartaigh writes. She describes the Atlantic as her favorite body of water, “the one that held me over the last three years.” 

I know this feeling, this sense of belonging and deep safety in certain places, when it’s rare for me to feel that way among people or in urban environments. In wild spaces the land practically vibrates with energy, often a welcoming one. But I’m rarely able to visit the places that feel that way to me, and I struggle to find similar ones in the middle of my densely packed urban city. We have beautiful parks, both ones landscaped by human hands and others left to their own devices, but it’s difficult to plug into them while a steady stream of hikers, children and dogs pass by. 

"Places do not heal us; they do not take the suffering we have known and bury it in their bellies. Places do not gather the broken parts of us up and stitch them back together. Places do not make the light shine on crow-black nights. Places do not take away our sorrow; they do not unearth the words buried under frozen bog-land; they do not call the birds back when they have been long gone from our sky,” ní Dochartaigh writes. “Places do not heal us. Places only hold us; they only let us in. Places only hold us close enough that we can finally see ourselves reflected back."

Casting about last night for something soothing, I turned to a recording of Patrick Wolf performing two songs for his Patreon supporters earlier this year: “Penzance,” a B-side from years ago, written about a town near the southern tip of England, followed by a cover of “Ari’s Song” by Nico. The recording is just piano, a loop of ethereal violin, and Patrick’s clear, steady voice. Listening to it felt like coming home. Like being held. 

Like ní Dochartaigh, Patrick Wolf often writes about the wild places that have held him, places where he saw himself reflected back. They’re frequently the landscapes of the southwestern UK: Cornwall, Penzance, Godrevy Point, Land’s End, Teignmouth. Places that felt enchanted, áiteanna tanaí, when I visited them, places captured gorgeously in Katherine May’s book about circumnavigating the southwest of England and coming to terms with her autistic mind, “The Electricity of Every Living Thing.” 

“There were devils in the winds that night, walking fire among the hills,” Wolf sings. “And many voices called me out to the cliffs, but you held me safe. You wrestled me still.” And then, in “Ari’s Song,” “Sail away, my little boy. Let the rain wash away your cloudy days. Sail away into a dream. Let the wind send you a fantasy of the ancient silver sea.” Nico was singing to her son; Wolf sounds like he’s singing to his younger self. 

And, perhaps, to my younger self, too. I grew up in rural northern California, with regular visits to places like the Sonoma Coast and Armstrong Redwoods, and even the feral places near my home. The trees that grew tart Gravenstein apples and the tall silver birches that swayed in the breeze held me. The woodpile, that endless treasure trove of insects, spiders and reptiles, kept me open and curious. The gate to the field behind my house, and the ring of willows beyond it, were a wardrobe to Narnia. As I got older, music began to offer new worlds I could inhabit, in-between places where I could be held and seen just as I am. Music and nature have been my steadfast companions. 

I’m grateful for new music, or new spins on older music, from some of my favorites, like Patrick Wolf and Hozier, who released his gorgeous new song “Swan Upon Leda” Friday. (Like ní Dochartaigh, it, too, crosses that unseen Irish border in one verse.) Their songs are like cozy forts I can curl up inside, escape hatches where I can let my mask slip. But even songs about wild places, about áiteanna tanaí, are no substitute for the real thing. I feel the pull so strongly, but I don’t know where to go. I hope an answer comes soon.

Our flag means stop pirating my books

Promotional photo from “Our Flag Means Death,” on HBO.

One of the most challenging things about being a self-published author is that I don’t have a legal department to defend me. Another is that PDFs of some of my books are circulated widely on bootleg/piracy sites and it’s like playing whack-a-mole to try to get them taken down. Once you figure out how to send your copyright infringement form to the right person at the right website, and they agree to pull your work from the site, it pops up somewhere else the next day. And, unfortunately, there are people out there who have taken my PDFs and republished them as their own work, selling them on sites like Amazon and Booksamillion. When that happens, it’s my job to contact the booksellers and ask them to remove the products, because I don’t have a legal team to do it for me. It’s a tedious and annoying process.

I went through a round of this a year or so ago, when my friend Justin texted me to tell me he’d seen some books in the Amazon Kindle store with the same content and similar titles as my book, “The Columbine Effect.” There were three different ebooks, each with a different title and subtitle. You can see them in the images below. 

Most of the subtitles were pulled from the book description on my website, and the cover images are either stock photos or a (presumably unauthorized) copy of a photo taken at Columbine High School the day after the shootings. One of the ebooks is called “Afterword,” which is just baffling. Amazon has a form that authors can fill out to report the sale of books that infringe/pirate their content, but it’s often a slow process to get these reports reviewed and the books removed. Eventually, they got taken down and I thought that was the end of it.

Around New Year’s, my friend Edward reached out, this time to tell me a friend of his had bought a book that included an article I’d written about his book, “Heavy Metal Africa,” a few years ago. My article, along with many others, are included in my book “Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa,” which came out in 2018. But the book his friend bought wasn’t “Tenacity.” It was called “Loyal to The Music: Middle East and Northern Africa War on Heavy Metals.”  Another book with the same content also popped up, this one called “War of Heavy Metals: Crisis Unfolding Around the World.” According to Amazon, “Loyal” was written by “Lawerence Orrantia,” while “War”’s author is listed as “Rick Moyd.” A quick Google search reveals that neither of these people exist. 

Unfortunately, these two books were already being distributed widely on a number of bookseller sites, as well as places like Goodreads and Google Books. I painstakingly reached out to each one of these places and figured out what forms to fill out and/or who to email, and most of them have since been taken down. In the process, I also discovered the three “Columbine Effect” clones were back in the Kindle store, so I asked Amazon to take them down again. 

This is a frustrating and exhausting process. Still, I wanted to see if I could find out more about the people or bot farms or whatever are taking pirated copies of my books, turning them into new books, and selling them online. I bought a copy of “Loyal to the Music” from Amazon – I hope it was the only sale – but when it arrived, it had no identifying information on it. The back page mentions Las Vegas, but nothing else, and all the barcodes take you back to the sales page on Amazon. 

I’m pretty sure “Loyal” was published by Amazon’s own print-on-demand service, and that the pirated Kindle books are also published through Amazon’s Kindle publishing platform. In many ways, this means Amazon is complicit in selling pirated books. Sure, they have each user/author/seller tick a box promising that they are the rightful content owner of the work, which lets Amazon off the hook. Amazon COULD match uploaded texts against the texts of existing books for sale on the platform, and dig deeper when a new upload matches something that’s already been on sale for years. Doing this – and blocking the publication of any new work that plagiarizes legitimate work – would cut down on the amount of time that publishers and authors have to spend filing complaints. But Amazon probably won’t, since doing so would make the company less money, and it doesn’t technically help customers in any way. In a word, it’s shitty.

Going forward, I expect I’ll have to keep looking for bootlegged copies of my books and asking sellers to take them down. I’ve had people say “hey, be flattered that they want to copy your work!” But my books aren’t that popular, and my sales are small. It isn’t flattering to have someone attempt to divert revenue away from me for the years of work, research and writing I’ve done. I don’t mind if people want to quote from my books if it’s relevant to their own writing; fair use is a thing, and I’m happy for my work to inform others’. But wholesale reproduction, in an effort to make easy money off my writing and skills, isn’t flattering at all. It’s keeping me from the work I really ought to be doing: more writing. 

The music, books, movies and TV shows I enjoyed most in 2021

Music and stories have always been a significant coping mechanism for me, and 2021 was no different. As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share a few of the things that brought me joy and/or distraction.

Music:

Hozier: Before this year, I pretty much only knew this Irish musician as the “Take Me to Church” guy. But then, one day, YouTube Music randomly played me “In the Woods Somewhere” and I stopped breathing, it was so beautiful. I fell deeply in love with his catalogue, especially songs like “To Be Alone,” which made me feel seen in ways I rarely do. I suspect he’ll have new music out in 2022, and I can’t wait. Someday I’m going to write a whole post about his fandom calling him Faery King and Forest Daddy. Just you wait. 

“The Harder They Fall” Soundtrack: I love this movie for its representation, its style, its casting (I’ve had a crush on Jonathan Majors since “Last Black Man in San Francisco”), and its music. Particular favorites include the addictive title track by Koffee and “Better Than Gold” by Barrington Levy. It even made me like a CeeLo Green song. And I love the tidbits of dialogue from the movie, especially the part where Regina King’s character shoots a man before he can finish saying a word that begins with n.

Emma Ruth Rundle, “Engine of Hell:” I’ve long found a home in Emma Ruth Rundle’s bleak, beautiful songs, and her 2021 release is her most bleak and beautiful yet. The bare-bones arrangement, just Rundle’s voice and guitar or piano, gives you nowhere to hide from her vulnerable voice and stark lyrics. Favorite song: “Body.” 

Books:

“32 Words for Field,” Manchán Magan: I began learning Irish through Duolingo this year, partly in the hope of getting closer to some of my ancestors by speaking the language they commonly spoke before it was outlawed by colonial England. I eventually discovered Magan, who’s devoted to reviving the language. “32 Words” focuses on nearly extinct Irish words, such as “sopachán” for nesting material (but also an unkempt person), or “sí gaoithe,” for a gust of wind, particularly if it’s caused by fairies. But he also writes about connections between native Irish people and the Middle East and India, and about communing with the Cailleach in an abandoned kiln. It’s a great read. 

“White Magic,” Elissa Washuta: Washuta writes essays the way I wish I could. She goes deep and wide, bringing seemingly disparate subjects together, tethering macro to micro, nature to the heart, pop culture to spirit. This book shook me to my core. 

“The Only Good Indians,” Stephen Graham Jones: A perfect mix of humor, horror, mythology and indigenous reality. I can’t wait to read more from him. 

Movies:

“Bright Star:” Ben Whishaw is perfect as John Keats and Abbie Cornish is astonishing as his fashion-forward lover, Fanny Brawne, in this Regency-period sketch by Jane Campion. 

“Hunt for the Wilderpeople:” Perhaps the most unlikely buddy comedy of all time, featuring a rebellious teen (Julian Dennison) and a cantankerous man (Sam Neill) who reluctantly becomes a father figure. Written and directed by one of my faves, Taika Waititi.

“Magic Mike XXL:” I had no idea what to expect going into this movie, which I watched with online groups twice this year. I didn’t expect it to be sex-positive, pleasure-affirming spin on masculinity, sexuality and brotherhood, but it is. So good. 

“Ondine:” I joke that this movie stars “Colin Farrell’s eyebrows,” but in reality I found a lot of solace in this movie about a strange woman who gets caught in an Irish fisherman’s net, and who may or may not be a selkie. 

“The Green Sea:” Randal Plunkett, the current Lord Dunsany, gained a lot of attention this year for his plans to restore and re-wild his family’s ancestral home. He also released a quietly brilliant film, “The Green Sea,” about a novelist and former heavy metal musician who meets her own characters while living in a remote manor house. 

“Nomadland:” I saw a lot of myself in Frances McDormand’s character, Fern, as she makes her way across the American landscape in her van. She reads to me as neurodiverse, probably autistic, but that isn’t the point of the story. Representation matters.

TV: 

“The Witcher:” I tried to watch this series when the first season came out in 2019, but found the triple timelines confusing and bailed after about four episodes. But with the new season coming out this year, I gave it another try – and fell in love. This is a series that rewards repeated viewings, and not just because you get to spend more time with Geralt of Rivia, TV’s yummiest monster-hunter. Season 2 is excellent as well, but much easier to follow. The whole thing makes me want to pick up my sword again.

“Reservation Dogs:” There is so much to love in this series: the teen actors who anchor it. The pull between home and escape. The hilarious unknown warrior. The “Willow” in-jokes. Mose and Mekko. The humor and heart. More shows like this, please. 

“Midnight Mass:” I really enjoyed Mike Flanagan’s previous series, “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” but appreciated that he went in a new direction for “Midnight Mass.” This series takes a bunch of traditional horror tropes in new directions, to brilliant effect. 

“Shetland:” I am abolitionist in my real-life views, but I still love stories in which grizzled detectives solve crimes set in remote, close-knit communities. This makes for an uneasy headspace, but then again, half the reason I love this series is for its far-flung Scottish landscapes, and probably another 30 percent is for the accents. It also handled a sexual-assault plot in a way that felt honest and respectful, not gratuitous. That’s still vanishingly rare.

“Normal People:” Two Irish teens find unexpected comfort and pleasure together, but life finds ways of keeping them apart. One of the most realistic love stories I’ve ever watched, and the stars, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, have unbelievable chemistry together. 

“Lovecraft Country:” As someone who’s very uncomfortable with H.P. Lovecraft’s deeply racist and xenophobic legacy, I appreciated the effort to tell a story of ancient evil through a Black and historical lens. “Lovecraft Country” isn’t perfect, but it aims high, and tells some unforgettable stories. 

What I Read in 2020

I read a lot in 2020, I think to distract myself for a few minutes or hours at a time from what was going on in the world around me. Granted, a lot of what I read was heavy and difficult, but I often like reading books that help me grow.

I also attended a lot of book events this year — only one or two in person (the last one was for the launch of Danielle Svetcov’s book “Parked”) and many more online. I appreciated virtual book events because I didn’t have to go anywhere, and I could attend events happening all across the country. Even when we go back to in-person events I hope some live-streaming options will remain available.

If you’d like to follow along with what I’m reading in 2021 and beyond, you can add me on Goodreads. And now, on with the list!

1. “H is for Hawk,” Helen Macdonald

2. “You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-acceptance,” Chani Nicholas

3. “Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture,” Hannah Evans

4. “Open Me,” Lisa Locascio

5. “Binti #1,” Nnedi Okorafor

6. “How Not to Let Go,” Emily Foster

7. “Dog Medicine,” Julie Barton

8. “Covet,” J.R. Ward

9. “Parked,” Danielle Svetcov

10. “The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook,” Matthew McKay, Jeffrey Wood and Jeffrey Brantley

11. “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause”

12. “First We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety,” Sarah Wilson

13. “Insecure in Love: How Anxious Attachment Can Make You Feel Jealous, Needy, and Worried and What You Can Do About It,” Leslie Becker-Phelps

14. “Death Wins a Goldfish,” Brian Rea

15. “Blossoms and Bones,” Kim Krans

16. “Daisy Jones and the Six,” Taylor Jenkins Reid

17. “Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames,” Lara Maiklem

18. “At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond,” (anthology)

19. Water Log,” Roger Deakin

20. “The Power,” Naomi Alderman

21. “KTLN,” Alee Karim

22. “A Black Women’s History of the United States,” Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross

23. “Brown Album,” Porochista Khakpour

24. “Big Girl,” Meg Elison

25. “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art,” James Nestor

26. “Braiding Sweetgrass,” Robin Wall Kimmerer

27. “Real American,” Julie Lythcott-Haims

28. “Invisible Gifts,” Maw Shein Win

29. “Bury Me in Thunder,” Moira J.

30. “The City We Became,” NK Jemisin

31. “Wow, No Thank You,” Samantha Irby

32. “Writing Ourselves Whole,” Jen Cross

33. “Every Heart a Doorway,” Seanan McGuire

34. “Gideon the Ninth,” Tamsyn Muir

35. “Emergent Strategy,” adrienne maree brown

36. “The Mermaid, The Witch and the Sea,” Maggie Tokuda-Hall

37. “Axiom’s End,” Lindsay Ellis

38. “Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun,” Faith Adiele

39. “She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next,” Bridget Quinn

40. “The Tower at Stony Wood,” Patricia McKillip

41. “The Companions,” Katie Flynn

42. “Resistance,” Tori Amos

43. “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and the Revolution in the Americas,” Roberto Lovato

44. “Find Layla,” Meg Elison

45. “You Can Keep That To Yourself,” Adam Smyer

46. “Occult London,” Merlin Coverley

47. “The Five,” Hallie Rubenfold

48. “Paranormal London,” Gillian Pickup

49. “Hench,” Natalie Zina Walschots

50. “Hyperbole and a Half,” Allie Brosh

51. “Solutions and Other Problems,” Allie Brosh

52. “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts,” Resmaa Menakem

53. “Inferno,” Catherine Cho

54. “Proper English,” K.J. Charles

55. “The Story of Dion Fortune” (as-told-to)

56. “Stalking Tender Prey,” Storm Constantine

57. “A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life,” Ayelet Waldman

58. “Pagan Britain,” Ronald Hutton

59. “Maid of the King’s Court,” Lucy Worsley

60. “My Dark Vanessa,” Kate Elizabeth Russell 

61. “Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema,” Lindy West

62. “Fat,” Hanne Blank

63. “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat,” Aubrey Gordon

64. “Wired for Love,” Stanley Tatkin

65. “So You Want to Talk About Race,” Ijeoma Oluo

66. “Magic Lessons,” Alice Hoffman

67. “The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love,” Sonya Renee Taylor

68. “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America,” Ijeoma Oluo

69. “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You,” Elaine N. Aron

Gender, Occult Writing, and a Project that Fell Apart

Image credit: Katherine Hanlon.

About a dozen years ago, two friends of mine and I had the idea to edit an anthology of essays by women occultists. We’d heard so many stories of skilled, knowledgable women going to OTO meetings or other occult gatherings, only to be asked if they were there with a husband or boyfriend or treated like clueless newbies.

Many of the most revered occult texts were written by men: Aleister Crowley, A.O. Spare, Israel Regardie, Eliphas Levi, etc. Even modern-day occult book publishing was largely dominated by men: Peter Carroll, Lon Milo DuQuette, Phil Hine, etc. Sure, there were a few women here and there, notably Dion Fortune and Helena Blavatsky. And there are more these days. But still, not enough to create balance.

My co-editors and I were part of a larger occult community at the time, and we knew women who were inventing their own approaches, spellcraft and systems of magic. We wanted them to get their due. We wanted to help them to claim the spotlight. We wanted their work to be known, followed, practiced. And we wanted the wider occult world to know that women were working just as hard on this stuff as men.

We began by inviting some of our favorite female occultists — ones who had been at it a long time, who were smart and serious, and who were good writers — to write essays for us. These would be the ones we’d use to sell the book project to a publisher before putting out a wider call for submissions.

The responses, in many ways, revealed a great deal about why more women weren’t getting published in this area. A few did offer to contribute, but most said they couldn’t, at least not at the time we were asking. They were taking care of young children or aging parents. Their work took up almost all of their time. They were buried under other projects and couldn’t take more on. It’s possible that this was their kind way of saying no to something they didn’t want to be part of. But it also speaks to the kind of lives women have — filled to the brim with interpersonal obligations, emotional labor and maybe a touch of imposter syndrome.

At that point, my co-editors and I began talking about a change in direction for the project, and we couldn’t agree on the new direction. It fell apart, largely for that reason.

I do wish we’d been able to pull it off, although I see now that we should have been much more inclusive in our approach, seeking work not only from women but from trans, genderqueer and nonbinary folks in the occult world.

I haven’t been involved in occult communities in a long time and I can’t speak to whether they’ve become more balanced and less misogynistic, but I’d be (happily!) surprised if they had. If you’re a scholar of the occult, what good books have you read in the past dozen years written by nonbinary, genderqueer, trans or female occultists?