Stuff I Edited, 2018
Dec. 30th, 2018 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksIt's the end of the year, so it's time for the annual list of stuff I edited. By which I mean line-edited, by the way, as opposed to acquired; acquiring decisions are joint at SH.
Obscura, by Yoon Ha Lee. A fantasy about, among other things, photography. Evanescent and melancholy, with a tinge of gentle hope. (And it's always nice to get to work with a friend.)
All of Us Told, All of It Real, by Evan Dicken. This is a neat metafictional horror story, and it's also pitch-perfect regional writing. About Ohio, to be precise. I hated living in Ohio.
Variations on a Theme from Turandot, by Ada Hoffmann. This is necessary fix-it fic for the opera, and also an interesting meditation on the relationships between art and characters and performers and creators.
Quietly Gigantic, by K. C. Mead-Brewer. I guess subtle suburban horror is a motif of stuff I worked on this year? This one is about feminism, unrequited love, and the importance of having a room of one's own. The previous sentence probably just gave you the wrong idea.
Chasing the Start, by Evan Marcroft. This is far-future SF set in a universe so lush with detail that there are multiple paragraphs I wish had novels of their own. Mostly, the story is about running, which is neat.
The Palace of the Silver Dragon, by Y. M. Pang. This appears on the surface to be a fairly classical riff on folklore about sea dragons. That isn't quite where it winds up.
Asphalt, River, Mother, Child, by Isabel Yap. So every year I seem to edit at least one thing where if you're feeling particularly emotionally fragile you probably shouldn't, and this year it's this one. But it's SO GOOD that I suggest bracing for impact and reading it anyway. It's about the current state of purportedly-anti-drug extra-judicial murder in the Philippines.
Some Personal Arguments in Support of the BetterYou (Based on Early Interactions), by Debbie Urbanski. Okay, maybe this is the not-if-you're-feeling-fragile one, because this is the one about how still, for too damn many people, It Does Not Always Get Better. SO GOOD, THOUGH. Also, suburban horror is definitely my thing this year, yep.
The Names of Women, by Natalia Theodoridou. We managed to time the release of this for our fund drive pretty much exactly with when she won the World Fantasy Award, and that was just a really nice moment for everybody. This story is about Philomela and the shapes of mythology.
Nine stories seem to be about what I can usually fit into a year, but this year was six times busier than last year on the personal front and I also had major medical issues, so I'm pleased and relieved to have managed it. A couple of pieces I didn't edit that have stuck with me: We Feed the Bears of Fire and Ice, by Octavia Cade, the not-actually-a-metaphor-for-climate-change story we all needed, and Toothsome Things, by Chimedum Ohaegbu, which is, and after the number of years I've spent reading both for myself and as an editor this astounds me, a Red Riding Hood variant I still like.
Obscura, by Yoon Ha Lee. A fantasy about, among other things, photography. Evanescent and melancholy, with a tinge of gentle hope. (And it's always nice to get to work with a friend.)
All of Us Told, All of It Real, by Evan Dicken. This is a neat metafictional horror story, and it's also pitch-perfect regional writing. About Ohio, to be precise. I hated living in Ohio.
Variations on a Theme from Turandot, by Ada Hoffmann. This is necessary fix-it fic for the opera, and also an interesting meditation on the relationships between art and characters and performers and creators.
Quietly Gigantic, by K. C. Mead-Brewer. I guess subtle suburban horror is a motif of stuff I worked on this year? This one is about feminism, unrequited love, and the importance of having a room of one's own. The previous sentence probably just gave you the wrong idea.
Chasing the Start, by Evan Marcroft. This is far-future SF set in a universe so lush with detail that there are multiple paragraphs I wish had novels of their own. Mostly, the story is about running, which is neat.
The Palace of the Silver Dragon, by Y. M. Pang. This appears on the surface to be a fairly classical riff on folklore about sea dragons. That isn't quite where it winds up.
Asphalt, River, Mother, Child, by Isabel Yap. So every year I seem to edit at least one thing where if you're feeling particularly emotionally fragile you probably shouldn't, and this year it's this one. But it's SO GOOD that I suggest bracing for impact and reading it anyway. It's about the current state of purportedly-anti-drug extra-judicial murder in the Philippines.
Some Personal Arguments in Support of the BetterYou (Based on Early Interactions), by Debbie Urbanski. Okay, maybe this is the not-if-you're-feeling-fragile one, because this is the one about how still, for too damn many people, It Does Not Always Get Better. SO GOOD, THOUGH. Also, suburban horror is definitely my thing this year, yep.
The Names of Women, by Natalia Theodoridou. We managed to time the release of this for our fund drive pretty much exactly with when she won the World Fantasy Award, and that was just a really nice moment for everybody. This story is about Philomela and the shapes of mythology.
Nine stories seem to be about what I can usually fit into a year, but this year was six times busier than last year on the personal front and I also had major medical issues, so I'm pleased and relieved to have managed it. A couple of pieces I didn't edit that have stuck with me: We Feed the Bears of Fire and Ice, by Octavia Cade, the not-actually-a-metaphor-for-climate-change story we all needed, and Toothsome Things, by Chimedum Ohaegbu, which is, and after the number of years I've spent reading both for myself and as an editor this astounds me, a Red Riding Hood variant I still like.
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Date: 2018-12-30 06:44 am (UTC)Oh, good. I loved this one.
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Date: 2018-12-31 05:48 am (UTC)I basically took this as a 'to read' list, and while I'm treading with caution given my own stress level at the moment, I'm so glad to have been immersed in so much good fiction.
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Date: 2018-12-30 10:44 pm (UTC)And this looks like a great reading list - will return to it post Yuletide.