2023 was an incredibly slow reading year for me, but there was a lot of great music, and Worlds Beyond Number and Dimension 20 truly brought me so much joy.

ETA 1/22/24: Can’t believe I forgot the Genre Grapevine newsletter!

Books

N. Cáceres’s Obsidian Feathers (Fire on the Horizon #1)

New author alert.

M.A. Carrick’s Labyrinth’s Heart (Rose & Rook #3)

An immensely satisfying trilogy closer. Found family + true love.

Adriana Herrera’s A Caribbean Heiress in Paris (Las Leonas #1)

Bridgerton eat your heart out.

Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Library of Broken Worlds

alfjdal;fjsaklf; please just read it and yell about how awesome it is with me. I need Alaya to rake in the $$ so I can continue to read her stuff.

Sas Milledge’s Mamo

Did you wish Studio Ghibli was more sapphic? Look no further.

Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen

Femme as a knife, Hollywood as Faerie, prose that shimmers like a legacy made of starlight.

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Music

Elton John and Britney Spears’ Hold Me Closer (music video)

Lizzo’s Live in Concert

aja monet’s give my regards to Brooklyn, for sonia, window seat, castaway

Noname’s boomboom (ft. Ayoni)

Allison Russell’s The Returner, Eve Was Black, and Sparrow (ft. Allison de Groot)

Jessie Ware’s That! Feels Good! album

Jessie Ware’s Save a Kiss (music video)

Wild Up’s Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine

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Actual play podcasts/shows

Worlds Beyond Number’s The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One S1

Worlds Beyond Number’s A County Affair

Worlds Beyond Number’s Fireside Chat

I think some podcasts rely on the good chemistry of the cohosts, and these folks have it in spades. I could listen to them talk endlessly.

Dimension 20’s A Court of Fey and Flowers

I failed to include this in the monthly roundup, so let it be known Emily Axford and Lou Wilson playing chaotic bisexuals is *chefs kiss*

Dimension 20’s Fantasy High S1x09 “Dishing With a Demon”

Dimension 20’s Mice and Murder

Dimension 20’s The Seven

Dimension 20’s A Starstruck Odyssey

Dimension 20’s The Unsleeping City S1x09 “Borough of Dreams”

Dimension 20’s Unsleeping City S2

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Podcasts

Esther Perel’s Where Shall We Begin?

Kaitlin Prest’s The Heart

Sam Sanders, Saeed Jones, and Zach Stafford’s Vibe Check

Phillip Thorne and Oystein Ulsberg Brager’s The Amelia Project (fiction)

Traci Thomas’ The Stacks

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Performances/lives

Dance video: Ballet Hispánico’s Doña Perón

Musical: Six

Live: Lizzo

Live: Allison Russell

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Newsletters

Roxane Gay’s The Audacity

Crip News

Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study

Lawrence Barriner II’s lqb2weekly

People’s CDC

Alaya Dawn Johnson’s A stranger comes home

Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine

Also on Patreon.