2025 Recap

In keeping with 2025, this is later than planned, but in keeping with 2026, I am sending the email.

I hoped, in 2025, to refill my cup & sort of I did. Here’s some good bits I want to remember: the deep winter weeks I spent at Macdowell; the glory of Queer Week III at the Fine Arts Work Center; the screenprinting workshop I took with Vicky Tomayko, also at FAWC; the progress I made toward assembling my Position Papers into a book; the new pieces I collected for the secret forthcoming anthology I’m editing (shhh!).

There were other sweet bits, with family & friends. This year, many of my closest people had books come out or had books scheduled for early 2026: Hilary Plum’s State Champ, Melissa Febos’s The Dry Season, Miranda Mellis’s Crocosmia, Donika Kelly’s The Natural Order of Things, Sara Jaffe’s Hurricane Season, Megan Milks’ Mega Milk, Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn. I am so happy for all of these books to make their way into the world! I also read two brilliant novels in manuscript form that I look forward to shouting about soon but about which I must now remain mysterious. Stay tuned! I guess this is an occupational hazard for a writer, but it’s also an occupational delight. Can we reclaim the coterie? I read these books first because I love my friends & want to read what they write & because we’re all going to die, so why not prioritize reading for pleasure & friendship rather than reading out of a sense of duty or obligation? Just saying what I need to hear myself!

My End of Year Lists

Last year I cataloged what I consumed, without commentary, so now that’s just what I do. I’ll continue to add an asterisk to express particular enthusiasm but I refuse to rank! Categories & caveats below.

Music

• Old favorite, revisited: The Aislers Set’s How I Learned to Write Backwards (2003)

• Ambient, ambivalent: Sugarhill DDot, Kendrick Lamar

• General mood: Fleet Foxes, Mazzy Star, Nick Drake, binaural beats

Podcasts

• News/Politics: *Cory Doctorow’s podcast, *Democracy Now, Ezra Klein, Hard Fork, the New Yorker Political Scene, the NPR Politics Podcast, Up First, Uncanny Valley

• Feelings: Being Well, Dr. Becky

• Literary: *Index for Continuance

Favorite TV

• Mostly Irish & British Mysteries: *Adolescence, *Bad Sisters S3, *Black Doves S1, *The Diplomat S3, Down Cemetery Road S1, *Hightown S1-3, *Ludvig S1, Red Eye S1, *Slow Horses S4, The Agency, *The Residence, *Department Q S1, *No Good Deed S1

• Shows About Work with Great Dialogue: *Abbott Elementary S3-5, English Teacher S1, *Murderbot S1, *Hacks S3, *Ted Lasso S1, *The Morning Show S4, *The Studio S1

• Pretend Friends: *Young Sheldon S6-7, *The Big Bang Theory S1-12, *Ted Lasso S1, *Abbott Elementary S3-5

• SFF: Black Mirror S7: “Hotel Reverie,” *Extraordinary S2, *The Lazarus Project S1-2, *Percy Jackson & the Olympians S2, *School Spirits S2 (Prime)

• Primarily of Gay Interest: *Heated Rivalry S1, *Overcompensating S1, The Last of Us S1-2, *Hightown S1-3, *Hacks S3

• Supposedly Real Life: The Four Seasons

Shows I Quit, If It Helps to Know

• Mysteries: Art Detectives S1, Irish Blood S1, Hostage

• Comedies: Everybody Hates Chris S1-2, AP Bio S1

• SFF: Mr. Robot S2, Paradise, Pluribus S1, Gen V S2, Severance S1, Zero Day, Stranger Things S1

• Supposedly of Gay Interest: The Hunting Wives S1, White Lotus S3

Most of the Films I Saw in 2025

• Black Bag (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2025)

• *Hedwig & the Angry Inch (dir. John Cameron Mitchell, 2001). At MHC

• *Kneecap (dir. Rich Peppiatt, 2024). On the plane.

• Murder at the Gallop (dir. George Pollock, 1963).

• Oh. What. Fun. (dir. Michael Showalter, 2025).

• *Past Lives. (dir. Celine Song, 2023).

• *Sinners (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2025). At Cinemark Hadley.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (dir. Jeffrey Fowler, 2024). At Grand Lake Theater.

• *Style Wars (dir. Tony Silver, 1983). Via YouTube.

• *Superman (dir. James Gunn, 2025). At Cinemark Hadley.

• *Sweethearts (dir. Jordan Weiss, 2024). On the plane.

• *The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (dir. Stanley Nelson, 2015).

• *The Room Next Door (dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2024). At Amherst Cinema.

• The Thursday Murder Club (dir. Chris Columbus, 2025)

• *Zerophilia (dir. Martin Curland, 2005).

• Zombies 1-4 (dir. Paul Hoen, 2018-2025)

• *Zootopia 2 (dir. Jared Bush & Byron Howard, 2025). At Cinemark Hadley.

All the Books, Alphabetical by Author’s Surname

Fiction

• *Natalie Adler’s Waiting on a Friend (May 2026)

• *Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993)

• *Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents (1998)

• *Justine Champine’s Needle Lake (2025)

• *Susan Choi’s Flashlight (2025)

• *Mac Crane’s A Sharp Endless Need (2025)

• *Max Delsohn’s Crawl: Stories (2025)

• Nicola Dinan’s Disappoint Me (2025)

• *Cory Doctorow’s Picks & Shovels (2025)

• Emma Donoghue’s The Paris Express (2025)

• Kemper Donovan’s Loose Lips (2025)

• Kemper Donovan’s The Busy Body (2024)

• Margot Douaihy’s Scorched Grace (2023)

• Margot Douaihy’s Blessed Water (2024)

• *Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Fat Swim (April 2026)

• Omar El Akkad’s American War (2017)

• Jeremy Gordon’s See Friendship (2025)

• *Sierra Greer’s Annie Bot (2024)

• *Rav Grewal-Kök’s The Snares (2025)

• Rebecca Handler’s Edie Richter is Not Alone (2021)

• Jacqueline Harpman’s Orlanda, trans. Ros Schwartz (1996)

• *Jacqueline Harpman's I Who Have Never Known Men, trans. Ros Schwartz (2022)

• *Sara Jaffe’s Hurricane Envy (2025)

• *Lauren J. Joseph’s Lean Cat, Savage Cat (February 2026)

• *Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds (2020)

• *Naomi Kanakia’s The Default World (2025)

• *Gabrielle Korn’s The Shutouts (2024)

• *Ellery Lloyd’s The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby (2024)

• *T Kira Māhealani Madden’s Whidbey (March 2026)

• *Miranda Mellis’s Crocosmia (2025)

• Denne Michele Norris’s When the Harvest Comes (2025)

• *Catherine Newman’s Wreck (2025)

• *Helen Phillips’ Hum (2024)

• *Hilary Plum’s State Champ (2025)

• *Charlie Porter’s Nova Scotia House (2025)

• *Olga Ravn’s The Employees, trans. Martin Aitken (2022)

• *Mariah Rigg’s Extinction Capital of the World: Stories (2025)

• *Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn (March 2026)

• Marie Rutkoski’s Ordinary Love (2025)

• *Kathryn Scanlan’s Aug 9--Fog (2019)

• *Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch (2022)

• *Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s Terry Dactyl (2025)

• *Michelle Tea's Valencia, with a new introduction from Maggie Nelson (2025)

• Milo Todd’s The Lilac People (2025)

• Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection (2024)

• Debbie Urbanski’s After World (2023)

• *Shoshana von Blanckensee’s Girls Girls Girls (2025)

• *Joe Westmoreland’s Tramps Like Us (2025)

• *George Whitmore’s Nebraska (2025)

Poetry

Caveat: Once again, I read a lot of poems a la carte…

• *Rosa Alcalá’s The Lust of Unsentimental Waters (2012)

• *Kay Gabriel’s Perverts (2025)

• *Donika Kelly’s The Natural Order of Things (2025)

• *Susan Landers’ What to Carry Into the Future (2025)

• *Márton Simon’s Songs for 3:45am, trans. Timea Sipos (2021)

• *Sam Taylor’s Nude Descending an Empire (2014)

Nonfiction / Prose / Nonpoetry

• *Vivian Blaxwell’s Worthy of the Event (2025)

• Roddy Bottum’s The Royal We (2025)

• *Anne Carson’s Short Talks (1992)

• *Caro de Robertis’s So Many Stars: an Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color (2025)

• *Shon Faye’s Love in Exile (2025)

• *Melissa Febos’s The Dry Season (2025)

• *David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs (2018)

• *Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (2020)

• Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024)

• Tina Horn’s Why Are People Into That? (2024)

• Islands of Exile (2025)

• *Hanif Kureishi’s Shattered (2025)

• *Jack Lowery’s It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic (2022)

• *Megan Milks’ Mega Milks (January 2026)

• Susana M. Morris’s Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (2025)

• *Maggie Nelson’s Pathemata (2025)

• We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America, ed. Brando Skyhorse & Lisa Page (2017)

• Edmund White’s The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir (2025)

• David Wojnarowicz’s Memories That Smell Like Gasoline (2025)

• Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other (2025)

Comix

• *Alison Bechdel’s Spent (2025)

• *Diane DiMassa’s Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist (2025)

• *Laura Gao’s Messy Roots (2022)

Kids & YA

• *M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2002)

• *John Christopher’s The White Mountains (1967)

• *Cory Doctorow’s Homeland (2013)

• *Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (2008)

• *Deborah Hautzig’s Hey Dollface (1978)

• *Cory McCarthy’s Man O’ War (2022)

• *Hal Shrieve’s Fawn’s Blood (2025)

Okay! That’s a wrap! More soon, for real!

xo AL