2021 in Review – Part 1: Publications

Posted on December 12, 2021 by Bev Vincent

It has been a long time since I posted to my blog. I keep intending to, but there are so many other shiny objects out there to occupy my waking hours, that I kept putting it off. As the end of the year approaches, I feel inspired to do my annual recap posts, starting with a vanity post about what I’ve written and published this year.

The Ogilvy Affair coverAfter a somewhat lackadaisical writing year in 2020, I had a pretty productive year. I started off by dipping my toe in the world of self-publishing. I had a long crime story that didn’t seem to fit anywhere commercial, so I decided to figure out how to format it for Amazon Kindle as an eBook. Turns out it’s a lot easier than I thought. The hardest part was creating a cover–I’m no one’s graphic artist. Still, I found a great stock photo and put together something that satisfied me. “The Ogilvy Affair” went up as an eBook in early January. Then I decided I’d like to have some print copies, so I reformatted the book, got a slightly different cover image and published it in trade paperback a week or two later.

Can I retire thanks to the revenue stream that novella generated? Not quite–but it did earn enough to pay for the stock photos I purchased for the cover and then some. More than a number of my short stories…and it does continue to trickle in a few sales every month. I’d probably do better if I promoted it more, but I haven’t had the time or inclination to give it a big push. I am fond of the story, though, and I’ve had a few good notices about it.

My other major fiction publication was my horror novella “The Dead of Winter,” which appeared in a collaboration with Brian Keene called Dissonant Harmonies. This is the longest piece of fiction I’ve ever published. We got a nice writeup/interview in ITW’s The Big Thrill when the book came out. I read a section of the book on Clubhouse and I posted the excerpt on YouTube.

The book was based on an idea Brian and I bandied about for a few years, inspired by the kinds of music we like to listen to while writing. We each made up a playlist for the other author to listen to exclusively while working on a novella. After a bit of a kerfuffle with another publisher, the book came out from Cemetery Dance in April, issued as a hardcover for their collectors’ club and as a paperback and eBook for the general population. I’ve been gratified by the reception for “The Dead of Winter,” and Brian and I recently decided to write Dissonant Harmonies 2 in 2022, so I’m busy assembling songs for Brian to listen to for that project.

My story “Tupilaq” was one of five winners of the Cemetery Gates Society’s first monthly flash-fiction contest (defined as 500-1500 words). The contest’s theme was Arctic/Antarctic.

One of my more interesting writing experiences resulted in the story “Blaze of Glory,” published in Voices of Varuna, a Renegade Legion Universe anthology. I’m not a tabletop gamer and I knew nothing about the RLU, but I put together a pitch for a story and was gratified to have it accepted so I could work with this cool group of people. For a while I thought maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew, the project was so daunting. I’ve written stories in the Doctor Who, the X-files and Sherlock Holmes universes, but in those cases I was already pretty knowledgeable about the background details. Here I was at sea for a while. But the creators of the game had an amazing amount of research material available for us writers and were available to answer any of our questions. We collaborated on a Discord channel, so it really was like a group effort. The final draft of my story was vastly different than my original pitch, but I was gratified to hear that a concept I’d created for it would be adopted by the game-makers as part of their bible. It was an intense project, but I’m really glad to have had the opportunity.

Other short stories that came out in 2021:

“Aeliana” from Shining in the Dark was also published in Russian, Polish and Greek this year.

I submitted a story to the LeVar Burton Reads “Origins and Encounters” Contest and was notified that I’d made it into the top 100 and then the top 25, but that was as far as I got. Still, I’m pretty pleased to have made it that far.

I published a few pieces of non-fiction this year, too:

The entry in the MWA Handbook was only a few dozen words, but it was nice to be included in this project. Also, my contribution to the commentary track of the new edition of The Dead Zone was a first for me that came about because of my friendship with Constantine Nasr, who I first met on the set of The Mist.

I also wrote a three-part essay about King’s crime fiction for News from the Dead Zone and reviewed Billy Summers and the streaming series Lisey’s Story and Chapelwaite.

I spent October putting the finishing touches on a non-fiction project that will be released late in 2022, but I can’t say anything more about it until the official announcement. I’m very pleased with it, though!

One of the more favorable repercussions of the pandemic is the increase in online interviews and podcasts. I think I can safely say that I was interviewed more often in 2021 than at any other time in my writing career. Here is the list, with links:

So, all in all, a pretty decent year, I have to say, coronavirus notwithstanding.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.