2021 wasn’t my favorite year, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever experienced. (Those were back in the 90s, and the less said about them, the better.)

Since this blog is a writing, reading, and, to a lesser extent, publishing blog, I’ll confine my comments to things that relate to those topics.

I didn’t get much reading done this past year. I came down with a moderate case of COVID at the beginning of the summer, which took a toll on my stamina over the summer. I didn’t have a lot of energy to do much reading or writing in June or July, and teaching a class the second summer session didn’t help.

Being in academia, the effects of COVID were felt there as well. The spring semester everything was hybrid, and I just have to say, “I HATE ONLINE LABS”. And I’m the one who put them together. Classes were back to full attendance in the fall, but there were other time consuming aspects of the day job, such as two additional committee assignments, a search committee and a building planning committee.

Most of my reading was short fiction, with very few novels. Most of the novels were either older works or independent authors. Among the trad published works, I tended to focus on Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, and Robert Heinlein, leavened with Isaac Asimov. I tried to work in as much Howard, Brackett, and Kuttner as possible, but I didn’t get as much read as last year.

Writing was pretty much a nonstarter, at least until NaNoWriMo. See this post for further details.

I guess like many people, 2020Won was spent trying to hang on to my sanity and a sense of normality. I’m hoping to change some things, but that will be the topic of tomorrow’s post.