Let’s face it, 2020 has been a dumpster fire in general for most people–and that’s being nice. This year I’ve had some good publishing luck (at least as it relates to my short stories), and I’ve been happy and healthy. That is, until December, when my husband and I got to have a very exciting conversation about my wishes about intubation and resuscitation.

That’s right: my husband (an essential airport worker) brought COVID-19 home and spread it to me, and I ended up hospitalized with double pneumonia. There’s a lot to this story, and I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say that my doctor in the hospital asked the questions (“if it comes to that”) and asked me to let my husband know, which is a very weird talk to have over the phone (no visitors to the hospital–especially the COVID wing–during a pandemic). The Slashertorte anthology–which contains my short story “The North American Guide to Animal Slaughter”–was released a day or two before I was hospitalized, and I barely had time to celebrate before things went sideways. In fact, the entire month of December seems to have barely existed at all, what with being down for the count with COVID, being hospitalized for three days, recovering from all of that (seriously, for only being out of the hospital for two weeks, I feel pretty great), and then emerging only a few days before Christmas and immediately heading into my workplace’s annual holiday break.

The great news is that since 2020 has been so overall hideous, it feels like I have an express pass to 2021–and early 2021 brings with it two anthologies in which my work will appear: the Shiver anthology, which has resulted in this great Women in Horror review that picks out my story as one of the stand-outs (!), and The Half You See.