What I Wrote in 2024 (and Made in 2025)

The poet Ovid taught me that Metamorphoses make monsters. I thought about these myths and their symbols during my year of writing, and throughout my pregnancy. My body changed and did weird things, and sometimes looked and felt so different that I dissociated for a moment. But then I came back, and embraced the change. Because I want/ed this baby more than anything I have ever wanted in my entire life. I am absolutely undone by the wanting and the love. I am uncivilized by it, a feral ball of hormones and nerve endings. And milk ducts, holy cow!

The theme I keep arriving at, in my life and my work is: I’m a monster and I like it.

I have a feeding playlist to keep the tempo up while we fuel this bottomless pit who grows a little all day long. (It is euphoria to watch and be a part of). I like a lot of songs about werewolves, I guess, because it seems like that’s what we are always singing about or dancing to. I’ve loved “Wolf Like Me” by TV on the Radio for a long time, but boy does this ever describe my post-partum body:

My mind has changed
My body’s frame, but, God, I like it
My heart’s aflame
My body’s strained, but, God, I like it

Which is all to say: I had a New Year’s Day baby! And then days later, I finally returned to my inbox to see that the last flash fiction I wrote during pregnancy went live while I was in labor. So fitting it almost feels too obvious to comment on, but here we are.

Here is what I published in 2024, and where I was in gestating a little wolf pup:

Fresh Catch

I let a draft of this story sit and ferment for a year. Then when I had a hunch I was pregnant but it was too soon to take a test, I got a rush of inspiration and finished this story. I think it’s my strongest writing of 2024:

Fresh Catch at Alan Squire Publishing

The Neighbors Said

I was early-pregnant when it was time to plant the backyard garden beds, which I usually do alone. But I was so nauseated, my partner helped, and it was fun. The garden grew WILD, the clover lawn went feral, and I like to believe that spirit guides my hungry growing baby now.

The Neighbors Said in the Coin Operated Press Hallo-Zine #5

You’re Carrying So Well

What do you say when it’s finally safe to tell the world you are pregnant, and you are told you don’t even look pregnant? Generally, I said, “Well I FELL pregnant.” But what if instead I said, Because I am become THE VOID ?

And thus we have “You’re Carrying So Well” at Wordrunner.

So Sweet, So Rich

Already hard to remember the summer heat and plague of mosquitoes from this deep place of winter. But this went live while I was in labor, and on the first day of a new year, we welcomed our little one.

So Sweet, So Rich at Bear Paw Arts Journal

Audio Content

A short story published in 2021 (and part of my flash fiction collection) appeared on the Fiction Kitchen Berlin podcast.

Listen to “The Jersey Devil Stays Busy” here.

What I Made in 2025

And then there is the matter of this kid. Oh, this kid, my heart is just bursting. Cooked for nine months of 2024 and arrived in the early morning of the first day of 2025.

I reserve the right to change my mind on this, since I’m only 11 days into the parenting thing. But currently, I do not see my writing or artistic ambitions as competing with the joy of being this little one’s parent. I can’t separate them. They are all me and all happening at once. This kid was with me while I did all this writing and submitting this year. The urge to find patterns and tell stories is with me for feedings and changing and desperate songs during fussy moments.

But I truly don’t think I’ll make anything better in 2025: