2015: Just the Links
I had a busy, wonderful, shitty, dramatic, productive year.
I got evicted, I’ve been homeless for more than seven months, and I became a writer again after a long absence from the craft.
Here are my stories.
Journalism
This Is My First Gun (Ratter)
The assignment was to explore California gun control law by actually purchasing a handgun
Press mentions: Media Redefined, Today in Tabs, The Browser, Belong, The Sunday, The Crowd Quotes, “Today’s 5” from This, the Marshall Project
Halloween Is for Dead People (Ratter)
A history of Halloween’s origins in Samhain and All Souls’ Day that addresses the question of why we decorate with both cute and gruesome ghosts and skulls
How to Cast Spells Using Emoji (Broadly)
Real witchcraft, via text or tweets
Medium
Solstice Bonfires and Christmas Trees: How San Francisco Witches Celebrate Yule
This year we built our fire in the rain
Of Homelessness and Luxury
What it’s like being a full-time housesitter with no home of her own
I’m at the Halloween, I’m at the Voting Booth
A postmodern voting guide that’s also an eviction narrative and a tutorial on how to carve a jack o’lantern portrait of your evil landlord
Living in Maslow’s Basement
When your home is being yanked out from under you, everything else becomes secondary to surviving
The Case of the Purloined Thin Mints
Excavating all the stuff left behind when other people move out of your apartment, and looking at your life through the lens of a housemate with an eating disorder
Vertigo and Overwhelm
Moving out is hard, even or especially when you already left half your life in storage
The Beginning of the End of the Middle
What it feels like to be on the precipice of eviction
Displacement Blues
My weekly newsletter about eviction, housing, art, cats, gentrification, and Mr. Bunny. Some favorite issues: Loose Leaves (No. 31), Crickets and Frogs (No. 27), Face Astigmatism (No. 21), Valise in Wonderland (No. 18).
Photographs
I had some really good ones in my Ratter stories. Some of my best this year are in my newsletter, and on Instagram and my Displacement Blues tumblr.
Tarot of the Emoji
I started a Twitter and a Tumblr for an emoji tarot deck I’m creating using the Magic Vibes app.
TV, Radio & Stage
The $1,800 Bunk Bed
KPIX/CBS5 in San Francisco interviewed me about my landlord, who evicted everyone so that he could airbnb individual bunkbeds in each unit. He denies involvement in the company he subleases three different buildings to.
BFF.FM: Burrito Justice Radio
Two podcast appearances: One with Andrew Dalton and Kale Williams, and the other with Andrew Dalton and Sam Stecklow. These were great fun. Burrito Justice Radio describes itself as “Twitter on the Radio,” and there are worse things you can listen to while you spend time cleaning your house.
Live performances this year: MUNI Diaries Live, the Arts Resistance (video), Porchlight, LitQuake
Interview
Jaya Saxena interviewed me for Mic about sexism and witchcraft. Republican fanzine National Review thought this was hilarious. I think they’re hilarious.
Other Stuff
I made a Facebook author page. I wasn’t great at keeping my main Tumblr up to date, but I at least made a good about page. I tweeted a lot. Somebody made me a Twitter bot.
You probably know this, but if you click that green Recommend button, more people will see this page!
I’d love it if you signed up for Displacement Blues, which comes out most Fridays via email.
Thanks for reading, and thanks to my most helpful readers/editors/friends: Sam Stecklow, Brock Winstead, and Elizabeth Creely.
