I usually have complicated feelings about awards season, but they're much easier this year:

I didn't have anything published this year. Nothing. Not a thing.

That's the first year since I was published that I haven't been published.

I guess I should dig into that, as self-forgiveness if nothing else.

The lag in publishing is a funny old thing. To wit: I've not done any new writing since about Easter 2019, thanks to real life, and yet in 2021 I had four new originals come out, which were--in my estimation--probably my best work.

Well. I'm glad to see the back of those twelve months, how about you?

I don't do awards eligibility posts anyway, but even if I did 2020 was basically a pause year for my writing for multiple real life reasons, of which a once-in-a-century global pandemic was only one. In all honesty I've hardly written anything new for going on two years now. Which is to say: about the amount of time we've been fighting our local education authority to get an appropriate school placement for our youngest child and his autistic needs. Funny how dealing with the bureaucracy required to secure your child's entire future and current happiness leaves you without the time or emotional energy to write.

But some stuff still happened this year! To wit: