2024 in review

TL;DR: Yikes

I mean, seriously 2024?

I remind myself every day that some great things happened in 2024. Personally, with my partner, I made a lovely pilgrimage to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Louise Penny-land for those who are fans of her mystery series featuring the Sûreté du Québec detective Armand Gamache. We ate and drank and hiked our way through the lush landscape Penny evokes so well (and largely avoided any contact with murders or calamities more serious than sore muscles).

Montreal’s Jean Talon market

I spent a month in Galway finishing my space opera (now on submission), taking breaks to attend theater, enjoy music, and generally soak in the cool Atlantic vibe. As the US election season heated up and made its twists and turns, I watched with some detachment as well as a rising sense of hope.

My writing routine in the Galway City Library

And then…well, there’s no mystery to this particular story. Experts will be puzzling out what happened and why in the presidential election for many months and years to come. Already, the impact is palpable. Universities like the one where I teach are urging international students to return before the inauguration. The nominees to key posts are a grifters’ row of thieves, abusers, war criminal apologists, kooks, and sycophants.

Those of us who care about human rights are going to have a lot of work ahead of us (not that a Harris administration would have been trouble-free—but I’d rather fight them than an out-of-control MAGA cabal).

Like so many, I began immediately to think about what I, one person, could do to continue to defend human rights and the people most likely to be targeted by the incoming administration: immigrants, LGBTQIA+ Americans, women, and children, among others. As has been said so often recently, our health care system is a shambles. I was honored to be invited to write about that for 270reasons.

I increased my donations to organizations doing excellent work in reproductive rights, press freedom, food banks, and local history. One area I am choosing to focus on in terms of my time is books, particularly books for kids who need the kinds of stories writers are creating. I joined Authors Against Book Bans and look forward to fighting to get important stories to the kids who need them.

I’ll also be writing more about those crucial stories in this newsletter. If you know of books and authors I should feature, please let me know.

For now, here are the books I wrote about in 2024. Please consider checking these books out of the library, recommending them to readers, and buying them!

Fred Korematsu Speaks Up was a highlight of 2024 for me. As I wrote, “The book is spectacular, aided by lively illustrations by Yutaka Houlette. When I say I was stunned and delighted by this book, I am not exaggerating. The writing, research, and visuals are among the best I’ve seen in a book for any audience.” More here.

“The Burning” is a YA adaptation, by Hilary Beard, of Tim Madigan’s excellent history of the 1921 Tulsa massacre. Among other things, the story teaches younger readers about the astonishing vitality, persistence, and ingenuity of Black communities even in the face of extreme violence (basketball superstar LeBron James’s production company is at work on a documentary about the Tulsa Massacre). Read my interview with Tim and Hilary here.

Available via Bookshop

I started 2024 with Kekla Magoon’s accomplished history of the Black Panthers. Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People is a necessary and long overdue deep dive into the roots of the Black Power movement, its connections to the fight for civil rights, the emergence of the Panthers, and their destruction at the hands of law enforcement. I fear the book may be newly timely as the incoming administration develops enemy lists that undoubtedly will include the young activists leading contemporary justice movements.

Smashwords sale!

My young adult trilogy is available in a special holiday sale. Start with The Bond for free! The Hive Queen and The Mother’s Wheel complete the trilogy and are available for just $1.49 each.

I’m wishing everyone a happy, healthy, restful, and cheery holiday — we’re going to need everyone rested and ready to build a better world in 2025.

Happy reading!