Danai's Dispatch: December 2023

In which we sink our teeth into stories about ghosts and monsters, embrace female rage and find hope in community

Author

Danai Christopoulou
December 17, 2023

Welcome to Danai's Dispatch, where I pop into your inbox once a month whenever something exciting happens, bearing gifts: thoughts on writing, short story and book roundups, tarot readings for writers, and exclusive giveaways! Thank you for reading. If you haven’t subscribed already, please consider signing up below.

December brings dancing little lights

I only like myself in retrospect. Only find pictures of myself acceptable, or even beautiful, if enough time has passed that the person in the photo is now “other.” Same goes for my achievements, my happy moments, and the world in general: I have a very hard time acknowledging good things as they come—like stars on the night sky, their light must travel a certain cosmic distance to really reach me. I blame Mother, of course. But I also blame 2023. This year has been heavy, impossible, heartbreaking, for so many of us all over the world. Yet as we’re resting in this in-between time, just before 2024 takes its first breath, it becomes important to dwell on the good for a bit. To focus on the dancing little lights in the sky. Here’s some of my personal little lights of the year:

  • I had my first pro-rate story published in khōréō: BRIDE OF THE GULF is about memory, music and murderous mermaids, and it’s been exciting and humbling to see this story featured in “best-of” lists and on the official Nebula Reading List.

  • I was reviewed for the very first time, by the amazing Maria Haskins in Strange Horizons, for BRIDE OF THE GULF.

  • We sent CURSED THE DEER, the YA Greek myth fantasy I co-wrote with A. J. Van Belle, out on submission. That’s three books out on submission. I’m fine.

  • I’m interning at the Tobias Literary Agency. Hoping I’ll be able to begin my journey in agenting in 2024, and help bring more great books out into the world.

  • I published a weird short from the POV of Medusa’s kid, Pegasus, filled with sunlight and carnage, in The Icarus Writing Collective.

  • I joined Haven Spec as assistant editor, reading poetry submissions.

  • I made my first foray into horror, with a flash about burial pods gone wrong called WHEN WE BECAME TREES in Hex Literary.

  • I saw my name on Fusion Fragment. In fact, the amazing cover illustration above by carlydraws was inspired by my story, SUNSET WITH THE SIXTH, about the sixth Caryatid that escapes the British Museum. The story is also featured on the Nebula Reading List.

  • I was offered the position of editor at khōréō! Ever since my story was accepted there last year, I’ve had the chance to observe how they work and was moved by their ethos, mission and care toward writers. I’ve been proofreading for them in 2023, and it’s humbling and exciting to step into this new role in early 2024.

  • This is the first year that I’ve had eligible work, so I made an Awards Eligibility Post. The graphic summarizes what I write and how I exist—I don’t know what genre or gender this is, but it’s Greek and purple and overtaken by Nature..

What I'm working on

With my third novel currently out on submission (did I mention that this is fine?) I returned to an idea that’s been haunting me since 2021 but I’ve felt I wasn’t ready to write yet. Unclear if I’m ready now, but I decided to do it anyway.

VILE LADY VILLAINS is a story about many things. Female rage. Daggers to the throat as a love language. Aesthetically pleasing cloaks. But mostly, this is a story about stories: about what would happen if two characters from very different tales (yet so alike, in many things) met each other outside the margins of their given space by their original creators. What would happen if these characters, written as vile, written as villains, got a second chance not only at life but at love—and at daggers to the throat. Would they repent for their crimes? Would they be nicer?

Or would they burn down the world together?

VILE LADY VILLAINS is an adult, sapphic romantasy that combines Mortal Follies' mix of Shakespeare and myth, the stabby sapphics of A Dowry of Blood, the dark humor of Gideon the Ninth and the liminal spaces of Piranesi.

I’m currently on the finishing line with this book, hoping to get it out on submission in early 2024. Fourth time’s the charm?

Superb Short Stories

15 stories I read in 2023 that still haven't left my brain, in alphabetical order.

  • Advice for Aspiring Cartographers, by Avra Margariti in Baffling, a tidal back and forth about the sea, its creatures and the people who observe them, that blurs the lines between poetry and prose.

  • Always Be Returning, by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Sunday Morning Transport, about the primordial bond between mothers and daughters, and the way it can break the world if held on too tight.

  • A Name Is a Plea and a Prophecy, by Gabrielle Emem Harry in Strange Horizons, a gorgeous story rooted in West African mythology that unfolds like a dream, keeping you guessing until the end.

  • An Inheritance of Scars by Martin Cahill in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, a gentle, kind tale about healing from generational trauma and about finding communal ways to make peace with our scars.

  • Island Circus, by Amal Singh in Apex, about floating houses that are a part of something bigger—and about individuality, the dangers of non-conformity, and the power of finding/forming your own community.

  • How to Stay Married to Baba Yaga, by S.M. Hallow in Baffling, a listicle that is both humorous and heartbreaking about all the ways one must choose their path in the woods—and keep loving their monster.

  • Monster of the Month Club, by Marissa Lingen in Haven Spec, a whip-smart concept about a gift subscription that keeps on giving (monsters) and some rather unforeseen consequences from it.

  • Re: Your Stone, by Guan Un in Diabolical Plots, a hilarious re-imagining of the myth of Sisyphus as an HR nightmare that, if you’ve worked in a corporate environment, doesn’t feel speculative at all.

  • Sitting Shiva, by Zach Rosenberg in The Deadlands, a haunting story about how our most beloved ghosts demand more than grief from us; they demand for us to keep living, even when it’s hard.

  • So You Want to Kiss Your Nemesis, by John Wiswell in Lightspeed, an adorable flash about the importance of queer elders, smithing your own weapons, and challenging your crush into a duel.

  • The Field Guide for Next Time, by Rae Mariz in khōréō, a masterpiece of textural history and community weaved (pun intended) into a mesmerizing loop that leaves you hopeful for the future.

  • The Meaning of the Key, by Sonia Sulaiman in If There’s Anyone Left, a deeply moving story steeped in folklore and hope, about the saints returning to Palestine. Much needed, especially right now.

  • The Sound of Reindeer, by Lyndsie Manusos in Tor.com, an unsettling tale about a creepy family tradition that may bring you closer to the spirit of the holidays… just not in the way that you hoped.

  • Umeboshi, by Rebecca Nakaba in khōréō, with prose that is equally unsettling and unforgettable, and a unique musicality that punches through this surreal, dreamlike story about belonging and ancestry.

  • We Are All Goblins by A. J. Van Belle in Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction, a wonderfully wormcore horror about a psychic with C-PTSD whose unique way of seeing the world is both a plague and as a second sight. (This. Has. So. Many. Worms. You have been warned.)

This was also a great year for non-fiction essays. Special shoutout to What Does Slavic Fantasy Even Mean? by Jelena Dunato in the SFWA blog about how “Slavic” is a popular label for fantasy novels and what that means for actual Slavic authors; and to A Dog, a Heart, a Box of Ashes, or Whom Rhodope Shed Tears For, by Maria Haskins in The Deadlands, about the love between humans and dogs and all the ways we’ve mourned our best friends throughout the millennia. This one made me cry. 

Books that Blew My Mind

Amid short story submissions and queries and manuscripts for my internship, my reading-for-fun was erratic this year, but I was blown away by Ioanna Papadopoulou’s Winter Harvest, from Ghost Orchid Press. In WINTER HARVEST, Papadopoulou turns the ancient triptych 'maiden-mother-monster' on its head, discussing how divinity changes the gods as well as the world. Through prose that is both poetic and unflinching, Papadopoulou forces the reader to come face to face with the darker aspects of Greek myths, in a tale as intricate as it is authentic and unforgettable.

All hail the Great Goddess Demeter: dark, monstrous and magnificent!
(and check out this amazing book cover by Greek artist Yorgos Cotronis)

10 more books that stood out for me in 2023

Thank you for making it this far

Oof, this was a long one. If you liked what you read, I hope you’ll subscribe, if you haven't already! And if you want more of this round-ups in 2024, help me spread the word for this newsletter by sharing it on your social media.