1 Question New Year’s Edition - Part 2
For New Year’s celebrations, I asked a few of our favorite authors one question. They were amazing good sports in answering and sharing their personal trials, tribulations and triumphs.
Here goes:
What makes you proud and what makes you cringe when you look back at 2022?
Lee Winter
Proud: I finished my two books in the Villains series (out early 2023). That doesn’t sound like much, I know, but I redeemed a woman who made icy, caustic reporter Catherine Ayers cry, and it was just so damned satisfying. I think given how much readers loved Catherine from The Red Files and loathed Michelle with the intensity of a thousand burning suns, that constitutes a minor miracle.
Cringe: This was the year I did the somewhat incredible feat, according to my doctor, of giving myself TWO frozen shoulders. I mean most normal people destroy one shoulder or the other from too much desk work and associated inactivity, but to have an actual matching pair is apparently quite a feat. Which brings me to the cringe… Each morning I’m now forced to present myself to my girlfriend in various tangles of half-donned bras or shirts, where I’m a bit in and a bit out, asking her to please re-adjust my nekkid bits and clothing in such a way as to not cause a scandal. It’s so unedifying being a human pretzel!
Lucy Bexley
Okay, the thing I’m most proud of when looking back at the past year is being there to care for my grandma as she passed. If it should be writing related, then I’m most proud of No Strings and the way Jones’s bipolar connected with people.
I’m sure what made me cringe was suddenly remembering something embarrassed I said fifteen years ago.
Georgia Beers
What I am most proud of this year: I think the thing that wins out is that I upped my marketing game a little bit this year. Social media isn't my favorite thing and marketing is something I hate with the fire of a thousand burning suns. But I worked hard to post fairly often and to plug my work without beating people over the head with it. I even joined TikTok (God help me)! I don't love any of it (the amount of pressure I feel around TikTok is maddening), but I'm doing it, and I'm pretty proud of myself for that.
The thing that’s been making me cringe for a long time now is the state of American politics. Seeing what some of these politicians have done or said? The complete disregard for the well being of anybody not straight and white? Wow. I have found myself embarrassed for my country and feeling like I should apologize to the rest of the world. It’s so disheartening.
Fiona Zedde
2022 has been an intense year. My cringiest moment was looking over the year’s To-Do project list and seeing that I completed not a single thing.
What I’m most proud of: only having one mini emotional breakdown during months of chemo.
Haley Cass
What makes me proud is the character growth I've gone through this year (personal life things and all that would be far too much to explain BUT trust me on this, it's been a lot), and how it's been able to open me up to a hopefully better and more productive 2023.
Biggest cringe: hetlors being convinced Taylor plans every word she says and every move she makes to a T, yet somehow believe she is still straight. Idk, man.
Finnian Burnett
I'm proud this year that I sent out over 150 stories and had 55 acceptances, shortlists, or wins. It was a huge goal and I smashed it. I'm also proud that my latest flash fiction collection is resonating with so many people. It was personal for me to write about a trans masculine person navigating life in a fat female body and I wasn't sure how it would be received.
My cringe moment of 2022? I don't know that I have any cringe moments but I'd say my biggest regret was not spending enough time on my own writing. I seem to prioritize everything else and when I come back to my own writing, it always feels as if I have to relearn how it feels to fall into the rhythm.
Frankie Fyre
This is a tough question as there are so many things I am grateful for and make me proud! A big one is seeing my holiday romance book, A Flight to Love, get so much support and love from readers! It made my heart absolutely swell. Being a new author, I’ve done a lot things outside of my comfort zone this past year wouldn’t have gotten through them without the inspiration of writers and readers of the community. I am incredibly grateful and proud to be a storyteller and look forward to many more books. Thank you for growing with me!
What’s made me cringe? Big cringe—without a doubt witnessing various TV shows with fantastic Sapphic representation get canceled or not renewed despite the abundant support for them. Representation matters and it’s heartbreaking to see such large platforms not step up and be a role model. Another cringe—my attempts at singing and dancing during my workouts is definitely up there. Honestly, I’m terrible at both. I’m sure my girlfriend laughs, but I can’t explain it, only that they bring me joy and make exercising not feel like work at all. If you’d witness my goofiness (hopefully not haha!), you would probably think it’s super cringe too.
A.L. Brooks
My proud moment of 2022 was saying “I do!” (or rather, the German equivalent, “Ja!” ) in July, when I married my girlfriend of five years. Calling her my wife makes me smile every time I say it.
My cringe moment was the time I was introduced to the director of HR at my company, in the staff breakout room, and two minutes later I promptly dropped my lunch bowl in front of him Steaming hot fish & chickpea stew all over the floor at his feet…
Ana Reichardt
Thinking back on the year, what makes me proud is helping to elect Raphael Warnock and releasing a book that I can’t get enough of. What makes me cringe is losing our basic rights as women.
But on a lighter note, I cringe when I remember that I forgot to thank the GCLS in my Goldie acceptance speech!.
KJ
This question comes along each year and it’s situational.
What makes me proud at work, or with my family, or in my writing? I default to the answer I want to give no matter in which situation the question is being asked.
That default answer is ‘I didn’t die’. But that’s depressing and I know people get tired of hearing from the mental person (I know I do) so I perched the question about pride on a metaphorical branch, had a decent reflective moment at the base of the tree, then climbed up to answer it.
I’m proud of the book I published this year (The Forever and The Now). One book, but gosh, what a book. I laughed and sobbed the entire time I wrote it, laughed and sobbed again in October when I reread it. I reckon it’s my best writing. If I may have a second proud spotlight, I’d like to include the Goldie for Ignis. Unexpected, surprising, wonderful.
Also I didn’t die this year. That’s quite positive.
What makes me cringe when I think on 2022? Again, situational. We cringe because of our own idiotic moments, but also when other people do something completely embarrassing right there in front of our eyeballs and our cringe translates as ‘oh dear’ or ‘thank Christ that’s not me’. So…
*Unfurls scroll thousands of metres long to choose one of the many, many cringeworthy moments in another KJ year*
The thing that made me cringe in 2022 was when I—in the middle of a bipolar psychotic high—submitted my 2022 book to an award which I knew I would be laughed out of the room for but I submitted it anyway because a bipolar high means I’m invincible and manic and bulletproof and can fly to the moon and submit self-published novels to state-level awards programs which are generally only ever won by Serious Novels With Serious Themes Because Serious Judges Nodded And Frowned And Gave Hums Of Approval. My cringe moment wasn’t at the submission time…it was five days later when I realised what I’d done. How embarrassing. Cringe.
Stay tuned for more 20 questions and Special Editions in 2023. And thank you for reading!
Happy New Year to you all! Thank you for being amazing and for all the support you provide to your favorite sapphic fiction authors.
If you’re wondering what the best New Year’s gift is for an author - the answer to this one is simple because it is always the same answer - reviews! Leave a review on a book you’ve enjoyed and make an author’s day!
Sending much love!