A Year-End Writing Round-Up

A quick post on what I published slash awards eligibility slash a lot of links

From Cross References by Jonathan Wolstenholme

In the past few weeks, this newsletter has gotten a lot of new subscribers. Firstly, hello! Thanks for checking out this newsletter on craft tips, publishing gossip, and weird books. Secondly, apologies in advance for a self-promotion post. As the year winds down, I like to write a round-up on what I published this year both on Counter Craft and elsewhere as much for my own memory as anything else.

Before I do that, let me thank you, my handsome, luminous, unimpeachable, vigorous, effervescent, and well-dressed subscribers. This newsletter started as a side project during COVID, but has truly grown larger than I ever expected. Counter Craft also nearly doubled the number of subscribers in 2023. So truly, thank you! I will now post the obligatory subscribe button:

2023 was a busy year for me between a fulltime job, other extra jobs, various life events, and… selling a novel! (See announcement below.) But I managed to publish Counter Craft on a near weekly basis and also wrote a handful of book reviews and short stories for journals like The New York Times and McSweeney’s. I’ll start with a round-up of my favorite Counter Craft pieces divided into a few categories. [Note 12/20: I’ve updated this post with a few final publications.]

2023 Counter Craft Highlights

Note: I publish all posts for free initially, but archive some older posts for paid subscribers.

Literary Essays Slash Rants

• Goodreads Has No Incentive to be Good

• Write for Your Best Readers Instead of Your Worst Readers

• Fear of the Surreal (follow-up: Some Surreal Books from Around the World)

• Fairy Tale as MFA Antidote (follow-up: A Literary Fairy Tale Syllabus)

• What Do People Really Mean by "Invisible Prose"?

• Your Novel Should Be More Like Moby-Dick

• Structure and Its Discontents

Craft Tips

• TV Causalities: Avoiding Bad Habits from Visual Media

• Better Said than Dead: Quick Tips on Dialogue Tags

• The Clarifying Cut

• Plus regular craft-centric author interviews with Henry Hoke, Dan Sinykin, and more.

Publishing Demystification Stuff

• Calculating When Your Book Will "Earn Out"

• How Novellas Became Novels

• That Viral "Most Books Sell < 12 Copies" Claim Again

My 2023 Non-Fiction Elsewhere

• BOMB Magazine: interview with Chain-Gang All-Stars author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

• New York Times: review of Ascension by Nicholas Binge

• Alta: essay on genre, form, and playfulness in Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

• New York Times: review of Do You Remember Being Born? by Sean Michaels

• The New Republic: “The Year that AI Came for Culture”

• And if you want to hear me in audio,

  Gabe Hudson
  interviewed me about genre, surrealism, writing, and other such things for his excellent podcast series
  Kurt Vonnegut Radio
  !

  • [Editing to Add: After posting this newsletter, I was very saddened to learn that Gabe Hudson passed away. He was a sharp writer and a smart, big-hearted, and generous presence in the literary world. I can’t believe he is gone. RIP. He will be sorely missed. I wrote a remembrance here.]

    Episode 42: Lincoln Michel, acclaimed author, joins me on Kurt Vonnegut Radio for interview

My 2023 in Fiction

Note: Stories marked (AE) are “awards eligible” for SFFH awards. If you’re a Hugo, Nebula, etc. voter, I hope you’ll check “The Last Serving” (online) and “The Pond God” (not online) out.

• (AE) Lightspeed: “The Last Serving,” an SF story about genetic editing and fine dining

• The Brooklyn Rail: “Notifications,” a story about death, grief, and social media

• Counter Craft: “Algorithm America,” a near-future science fiction story slash experiment in self-publishing fiction on this newsletter.

• (AE) McSweeney’s: “The Pond God,” a cosmic horror / ecohorror story set in rural Virginia

McSweeney’s 71 (edited by Brian Evenson) on my countertop

I also had one reprint and one audio version of two older stories:

• Roadmap: “From the Comfort of Your Own Home,” a speculative story set in a virtual reality writing retreat (originally in One Story)

• StarShipSofa: “Red Oil,” audio of a SF body horror story (originally in The Baffler)

And that’s it! I’ve got some more stuff coming your way next year, including a graphic adaptation of one of my stories in a collection forthcoming from David Small (I’m very excited for this one), some short stories, and, well, whatever I decided to publish here on Counter Craft.

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If you like this newsletter, consider subscribing or checking out my recent science fiction novel The Body Scout that The New York Times called “Timeless and original…a wild ride, sad and funny, surreal and intelligent.”

Other works I’ve written or co-edited include Upright Beasts (my story collection), Tiny Nightmares (an anthology of horror fiction), and Tiny Crimes (an anthology of crime fiction).