Hey there. I'm writing on the last day of 2020, so: Happy New Year!
What a doozy, right? 2020 was a bad year for my country and the world at large, but an awesome year for me personally, which was a persistent source of cognitive dissonance. I am enormously grateful for my good fortune, and I want to thank you in particular for contributing to it! Thanks a million, seriously! In exchange, I will keep striving to Become Good and hopefully continue to entertain you along the way.
Speaking of which, fingers crossed that you haven't tired of annual reviews yet, or that you're like me and can't get enough of them. (Hit reply and let me know how your year went! Happy to commiserate and/or congratulate you on the wins.)
In 2020 I quit my day job to focus full-time on indie publishing, a leap made possible by family support. (See above re: luck.) I achieved my goal of making 12 zines, albeit with fits and starts. I commissioned and featured work by other creatives, including contributions to the commons. I raised $5k for people who were struggling due to the pandemic, and personally dispensed the funds — best thing I did this year, hands down, profoundly affecting my plans going forward. I wrote a manifesto for my ethos, and a post that got 10k views (orders of magnitude more than usual, due to hitting the front page of Hacker News).
I married my wonderful husband. I celebrated 365 days off the bottle. I rediscovered my faith and came home to God. I stopped putting up with anyone who berated me about politics — "Losing friends left and right / but I just send 'em love and light," as Ariana Grande said. I spent time with my parents (we live on the same property) and cherished every minute. I read fantastic books.
Over the course of the year, I especially benefited from the guidance and encouragement of Josh Cincinnati, Antonie Hodge, Lena / H. L. Moody, Travis Corcoran, Justin Murphy, Anton Troynikov, Visakan Veerasamy, @orthonormalist, Liminal Warmth, Matt Parlmer, Victoria Boykis, PoliMath, and Nadia Eghbal, plus a couple who probably don't want to be named, but they know who they are. I'm trying to keep the acknowledgements concise, but it's tough to stop listing people! Pretty much, if we talked this year, I'm glad. Love beyond measure to all of my friends — I miss giving you big hugs in person.
So that's this year. What about the next? Well, recently I figured out what Sonya Supposedly membership will entail in 2021:
monthly Wanderverse happy mail [physical mail], with the digital versions contributed to the CC0-licensed corpus luxe print quarterly (probably with rotating themes)
In addition I'll keep writing this newsletter, "behind the scenes" notes for members, and aspirationally a blog post here and there. I have a few more grander publishing gambits in the works, which I hope to spring on you soon.
My word of the year for 2021 is 𝕓𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕤 (or, if you prefer, 𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔰). I know that my roots are firm, so I'm excited to reach into the sunlight.
Header image: Castle of Ladakh by Nicholas Roerich, h/t @artistroerich.
