It’s been a whirlwind year for me, personally and professionally. After waiting years for the first of our graphic novels to be released in the world, it finally happened! I wanted to do a little summary of “everything,” even if it’s just for myself. This year has been a milestone one for me and despite the fact that there’s been an ongoing pandemic, I want to celebrate the good.
This will be a bit of a mix of things from my professional accomplishments (ie. book releases) as well as a few fun personal things that have been going on. It also might get a bit long, but I’ll try not to ramble. Let’s get started!
OH MY GODS!
Our first graphic novel, Oh My Gods! came out in January—it was a weird time to have a book come out since the city of Toronto was still in lockdown and only stores deemed “essential” were allowed to remain open. I wasn’t able to see it on store shelves for over a month! But when I did, it was amazing. It’s hard to believe that something you helped make is out in the world when you can’t actually see it. But spotting it for the first time was a moment I will never forget. PLUS we got a write-up in the New York Times?! Wild.
FREELANCE FULL-TIME
I quit my job and went freelance full-time! I didn’t anticipate doing that; the plan was always to have a day job until I was someday earning a passive income through royalties. BUT I couldn’t keep going at a job that didn’t value me as an employee and kept piling more responsibilities on me. It was terrifying to do but I think now that it was the right decision and I wholeheartedly thank Tory for (lovingly) bullying me into it.
EDITING
Editing work really took off for me too. As a result of my quitting my job (see above haha), I wound up starting to work for a few incredible creators and publishers as a consultant and editor. There are a few projects I can’t talk about yet but one of my fave things to work on this year has been Animal Rescue Friends with Epic Originals. I’ll do a proper announcement for this project when there’s more to share, but it’s been an incredible opportunity and experience so far.
PARANORTHERN
My second full-length graphic novel came out this year too. Technically it was actually my first (we sold it before Oh My Gods!) but the way the publishing schedule panned out, it came out second. I’m so ridiculously proud of it. We were nominated for a Silver Birch Fiction Award (!!!!) and my Talking Comics family nominated it for Best Original Graphic Novel…and they nominated me for Best Breakthrough Writer.
Unlike with Oh My Gods! stores were thankfully open for its release but there were lots of restrictions still in place. BUT I managed to do an event with the wonderful people at Book City on the Danforth. We did an outdoor event in July and it was amazing to celebrate the moment with my neighbourhood as well as friends that stopped by.
LIFE
Oh and I had another book come out? This one was a bit of a whirlwind but Megan Huang and I had been doing a series of short stories as back-ups for the Image Comics book Tartarus (that I edited). We decided to do a collection of the stories and teamed up with TO Comix to make it happen. We funded via Kickstarter and made our goal within the first 24 hours! Now it’s out in the world for y’all to read and enjoy.
TTRPGs
I went from 0 to 60 with D&D and TTRPG’s during the pandemic. We did a new season of The Diecast Podcast where I reprised my role as Dark Elf Sorceress Supreme, Amalica Myep. It was a blast and we even managed to record some episodes in person which was amazing (TTC not withstanding…) and I played a new character in a series of one-shot campaigns called Tales from Trollskull. I played a bardbarian named Una and got to RP with a ton of friends—it was ridiculously fun!
And then a few weeks ago, I started another campaign where we’re playing City of Mist. I joined the Going Critical crew and am finally playing a system that’s not D&D! It’s a Powered by the Apocalypse system and our campaign is called Sleepless Nights. We play Tuesday evenings at 8pm EST over on Twitch. And for that, I’m playing a character named Nikki Bailey who is a pro soccer athlete with a bit of a bad temper. We’re three episodes in and I can’t wait to see where it goes.
CAPER CAST
And speaking of streaming and podcasts, I started a new podcast this year with my partner-in-crime, Whitney Gardner! It’s called the Caper Cast and it’s us talking about cinematic heist movies that we watch. We review the film, we review the heist…it’s a good time! It’s been so much fun to do and I hope that you’ll consider checking it out, if you haven’t done so already.
RACC PACK
Which leads me to my next point…I HAVE A NEW BOOK THAT WAS ANNOUNCED! You can see the write-up right here on my blog. But basically my podcast partner-in-crime, Whitney Gardner, and myself sold a series to Simon & Schuster earlier this year and it’s called The Racc Pack. It’s a book about a family of raccoons who decide that they want a break from scavenging for the winter and plan a heist of the motherlode of dumpsters. It’s planned for release in Fall 2023…and now you have some further context into why Whitney and I started a podcast researching heist movies!
ARCHIE
In my last bit of comic book-related news, I’m making my Archie Comics debut in February! Comics Beat did a write-up about it but you can also check out the announcement on my blog here. I got to write Veronica, a little bit of Archie, and Dilton in the Love & Heartbreak special. The art for the story is by the incredible Lisa Sterle (y’all, I can’t tell you how excited I was to get paired up with Lisa!!!) and I can’t wait for you to check it out.
PEKOE
And finally, I’m writing a video game! You maybe saw the news around the internet or on socials, but I’ve been brought on board to Kitten Cup Studio to write Pekoe. It’s a cozy tea-making simulator that takes place in a town populated by cats! I was basically born to work on this game and between getting to work on this and writing a book about raccoons? I honestly don’t know how things could possibly get any better. It’s been an incredible experience so far and I hope you’ll consider checking it out. You can watch the trailer and add it to your Steam wishlist here.
And that’s it! I mean, that was a pretty extensive list so saying “that’s it” doesn’t seem entirely appropriate. But I’m really proud of the year I’ve had, even with the ongoing pandemic as well as some personal tragedies. It’s always hard to sum up everything in a relatively short post, but I guess these are the highlights. I’m sure I’m missing stuff but I’m just so grateful to have these opportunities.
I hope you all had a great 2021 too and may your 2022 treat you (and all of us) well.
<3