November, in all its . . .

winners-1024x711 I have been wanting to blog, but Facebook has been a kind of time-sink this last month.

Since last I blogged . . .

I won the World Fantasy Award for Bone Swans (had adventures driving to Columbus in driving rain Friday night rush-hour lower Manhattan and Jersey City traffic, with Carlos Hernandez and Jessica Wick; we split a hotel room with John O’Neill of Black Gate and writer Patty Templeton; I got terribly sick; gave a silly but heartfelt speech; had more adventures driving back)

The elections (and fallout)

I met Dr. Keramet Reiter, whose book 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement I narrated for Tantor, and which book I cannot recommend more highly. We had tea with her and her partner at the Russian Tea Room, and I attended her guest lecture at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at CUNY

Leonard Cohen put out the flame

I wrote this blog for Black Gate Magazine about Wolfe and Parisien’s The Starlit Wood

I signed a contract to narrate the audiobook of Bone Swans for Tantor

My roommate met Hillary Clinton at our local bookstore

…The very bookstore at which I gave this interview, which was also in the paper

My father, stepmother, and Gary Daigle also came to town to give a concert

My beloved Hernandez got into Rich Horton’s Year’s Best 2017, with “The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory”—one of his amazing Gabi Réal stories

My wonderful Patty Templeton got a job as Staff Writer at DGO Magazine (Arts and Culture columnist), all the way in DURANGO!

Also, this amazing man read and loved Hernandez’s THE ASSIMILATED CUBAN’S GUIDE TO QUANTUM SANTERIA, and I wanted to show you:

So, you see. November. A mixed bag here at the Belfry. We try to keep active, to take our poison in small doses (we try very hard; we often fail), extract use from fury, remain kind when we can, and read a lot of Terri Windling blogs. Like this one, on DARK BEAUTY.

I’m not ready to blow up 2016, and I won’t be—until January 1st, 2017. (Although I did appreciate John Oliver doing it. As a musician friend of mine once said, about François Rabbath defenestrating his double bass: “It’s always funny when you throw something out a window.”)

The thing is, I saw people ready to blow up the year way back in January. All year long, friends have been figuratively blowing up the year, the month, the week, the day—things were and/or seemed that bad. But things have always been bad. If not here, then elsewhere. Everywhere.

This is all we have. And although I like fireworks and drama as much as the next person, I am going to wrestle this colossus of a year, this global darkness and local joy, this thing called 2016, until it shrinks to seed-size and is reborn as 2017.

2017 is going to be hard enough without us giving up on it before it begins.

So. It’s time to listen to some music. Cohen’s YOU WANT IT DARKER, Simon’s STRANGER TO STRANGER, S. J. Tucker’s MOVING MEDITATION, anything. Everything. Music will help. And food. And helping other people.

To that end, we’re doing a concert in December, and all proceeds will benefit our local food pantry.

Here’s the FACEBOOK INVITE.

And here’s the flyer:
medusamiaposter