✨ Reflections on 2025
At this time last year, I published a small, silly infographic about my first year of publishing my work, with a small tally of my successes and jokes at my disappointment’s expense. This year, I’m thinking less about what I’ve achieved and more about what I haven’t.
In the grand scheme of things, and certainly when compared to many other writers, the numbers aren’t much. Still, my highlights from 2025 are as follows:
Rocky Mountain Gothic — published by a beautiful Canadian magazine, Augur, where I had the most outstanding editorial experience working with the phenomenal Kelley Tai and the great honour of having my work illustrated by Katelyn Pellow.
On Eyeshine — published by Bloodletter Magazine (who are celebrating their second consecutive year as Chill Sub’s community #1 pick for Best Bold and Weird lit mag!) in the Rage issue, illustrated by the outstanding Ana Luna.
A Mortal Breaks Aphrodite’s Heart — published by Flame Tree Publishing, who not only produce some of the most visually beautiful works known to bookstores everywhere, but also continue to extend opportunities and run a podcast!
A DREAM, 12 AM, L.A., BUT IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER — published by Icebreakers Lit, where I got to write with my bestie (more thoughts here)!!
Limerence — which was later nominated by the editorial team for the Pushcart Prize — published in the Periwinkle Pelican, in a devastating issue themed “the truth is, I want to want to live.”
Unfortunately, I think most of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else will ever be, and that’s surely true of writers.
I look at my list of publications in these lovely, interesting magazines and I feel this wave of pre-disappointment for 2026. I barely did any writing this year, and next year my list will be humbler. I’m trying to understand what that disappointment says about me. Is it telling me that I write for ego more than pleasure? Is it telling me that comparison is the thief of joy? Or is it just a way of measuring productivity, something I value highly in myself and others?
I really miss my dad. I also really miss that green tee shirt. It was the best.
It’s been a hard year. I went to my first grief group this Saturday. Someone approached me at the end of the session and said, “The first year, you’re in shock. The second year is harder.” While today I look back and think, gee, thanks for that, Mary, at the time, I blurted out, “I’m so tired,” and cried while she hugged me.
I cannot imagine another year of writing so little. In 2025, I wrote sporadically—proving to myself I hadn’t been abandoned by ability, finding instead it was not much better to have been abandoned by passion.
I wish I had become one of those people who becomes sharper after a loss. I wish my pen were blazing with indignation or sadness or anything I could call fruitful. I feel like a zombie, moaning wriiiiiiiiite, while every day I go hungry. I write only in my head while trying to fall asleep, and it’s mostly nasty emails I’ll never send, or sassy texts I’ll turn into a poem one day.
Grieving has been a listless and unrewarding experience. It is mostly fuming, crying, and missing. The most I have learned from it is that I am able to make anything, including someone’s death, totally about me.
But this is my blog, and so it is my pleasure to announce that for this moment, it is about me. And I have spent a year missing my father, experiencing and revisiting trauma, carrying foul anger and self-serving bitterness, and becoming creatively emaciated.
For the sake of not carrying too much regret into the new year, these are a few wishes I have for myself in 2026, which you may feel free to disregard or adopt or mock in your spare time:
Remember that your best is not the same every day. Expectations must be adjusted daily, be they for word counts, step counts, or whatever else gives you purpose.
Functioning is not achieving everything all at once. Functioning is doing as much as you can without harming yourself spiritually, emotionally, energetically, socially, physically, or otherwise.
Your worth is not determined by your outputs.
You are allowed to be selfish. You have a voice so you can say “no” when you need to.
People who love you truly love you regardless of your accolades and your creative expressions. People who love you truly love you when you are having a bad day—or a bad year—and need to take more air-slash-space than them sometimes. If you are honoured to share their burdens, remember they are also honoured to share yours.
Happy holidays, happy new year, all the best,
Ev