2024: some year-end thank yous

​I’m filled with gratitude this year to have come through some unexpected health problems (perhaps most health problems are unexpected—never fully expected even as you age). I’m grateful to my terrific doctors, an army of specialists, it seems. I’m grateful to the editors who’ve published my work this year, and the colleagues at CRAFT and in the literary community who’ve supported me. To the fellow writers who've critiqued and encouraged me. And always, to my readers!
 
Most of this year was devoted to finishing my work-in-progress THE LUNATICS’ BALL, and I’m almost there. That is, I’ve actually printed out a hard copy of the entire first draft. (Individual chapters/essays have gone through many drafts.) I couldn't have gotten this far without my long-standing San Francisco writing group, the Leporine Conspiracy (now an international writing group via Zoom). I'm still not sure what it is, my baggy beloved monster: a researched collection? a hybrid memoir? a collective (auto)biography? speculative nonfiction?

THE LUNATICS' BALL (92,000 words plus illustrations)

​I’ve been writing considerably less flash and longform fiction and nonfiction for publication than in previous years.

Nonfiction
 
​"Doorbells," Doubleback Review (reprint)
I was thrilled when this essay was accepted by South Loop Review, a print magazine I loved, and disappointed when they folded one or two issues later. I’ve always liked the essay and was grateful when Doubleback Review accepted it for reprint.

"January 10, 2014," Past Ten
This essay was solicited shortly before I was diagnosed with serious heart problems, and I was happy for the opportunity to reflect on what I was doing ten years ago and also on the shock of my new diagnosis. After about nine months of worry and frequent ER visits, after unsuccessful procedures, after an ablation, it appears that my atrial fibrillation has been fixed (or at least is in abeyance) and my heart has regained its former strength. It’s not something I’ll take for granted now.
 
Past Ten will also include this essay in an anthology, forthcoming from Cornerstone Press next year. And there will be an offsite reading for the anthology at AWP in Los Angeles next spring. My husband Steve, who published a novella with the University of Tampa Press this year, will also be on a panel. We haven’t been to an AWP since before the pandemic.
 
"The Lunatics' Ball" (reprint) and craft essay, The Lab: Experiments in Writing Across Genre, by Matthew Clark Davison and Alice LaPlante (W.W.. Norton)
Also forthcoming: a reprint of the title flash in The Lunatics’ Ball (originally published in F(r)iction) along with a craft essay about hybrid writing in a W.W. Norton textbook on cross-genre writing! Matthew Clark Davison will be using the textbook in a class he’s teaching in Mallorca next summer. I hope other creative writing teachers will adopt the book, and I’m excited to reach many new readers.
 
Interview: Donald Quist, CRAFT
 My coeditor Shara Kronmal and I interviewed Donald Quist (the founder of Past Ten and the judge for CRAFT’s Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest). Donald provided such substantial answers to our questions about his books and teaching and writing creative nonfiction! I particularly like what he says about vulnerability. Our interview was published this week.

I just sent questions to Naomi Cohn, author of the wonderfully innovative collection The Braille Encyclopedia: Brief Essays on Altered Sight (Rose Metal Press, 2024). That interview will be published in CRAFT next March.
 
Fiction
 
Both of these were stories that I’d started and laid aside when I didn’t know how to end them. Both were fun to return to.
 
I particularly enjoyed writing dialogue in this one.
"Petey's Own Personal Jesus," Roi Fainéant Press 
 
My “road rage” story was one of those short stories that kept evolving and changing as I pushed further. I did not anticipate the ending at all. (The editor at BULL is known for his amazing acceptance letters. It was so nice!)
​"Randall's Commute," BULL
 
Flash
 
I’ve been thinking a lot about “speculative nonfiction” and enjoyed writing this one. (Also a really nice acceptance letter and grand copyediting experience!)
“That Boy When You Were Sixteen,” Aquifer: The Florida Review Online
 
Amy Marques created a beautiful work of art in this anthology of reprints collaged and painted on pages from The New Yorker. I was pleased to see this recent micro from Midway Journal included.
"Doppler Effect," Duets + 1, curated with art by Amy Marques (p. 41)

​I was too self-conscious to participate in readings with this flash on being flat-chested! But the anthology has done brilliantly and garnered a lot of well-deserved reviews and attention on social media.
“Late Bloomer,” Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, edited by Diane Gottlieb (ELJ Editions, 2023), order here 
marketing sheet here
​
I love that Francine Witte publishes groups of flash in Flash Boulevard, because these work so well together. “Returning to the Wreck” is a lyric piece for The Lunatics’ Ball.
"I Dream You Are Alive: Creative Nonfiction Micros" (“So Long Ago,” “The Umbrella,” “We Could Have,” “Family Ties,” “Sex Education,” “Something Else,” “Returning to the Wreck”), Flash Boulevard 
I was thrilled to discover the Kathy Fish included this set of micros on the recommended reading list in her February 2024 newsletter.
 
When Current solicited work from me, I developed the historical context a bit more in this piece, which was a great improvement, I think. Something I should think about in other memoir pieces as they evolve.
"Shoplifting," Current 
​
Every February, the UK journal Fictive Dream devotes the entire month to flash. I’ve been included many times. I loved taking part again.
"Pretty Penny," Fictive Dream

I still miss my cat! Of course the flash needed to mean more than that.
"Ode to My Cat, Ten Years Gone," Sweet 
 
I have a microflash in an anthology at Alternating Current Press that was delayed by the pandemic and looks like it’s finally coming out. The Tertiary Lodgers features secondary characters in well-known literary works (mine is Nippers in “Bartleby,” one of my favorite short stories).
 
I have flash forthcoming in two magazines that I like a lot: Does It Have Pockets?, and South Florida Poetry Journal.
 
Interviews
 
Ashley Balcazar originally asked me if she could interview me for Jill Talbot’s graduate seminar on creative nonfiction at the University of North Texas. Ashley, who is also bipolar, was particularly interested in that subject. When she later asked whether the interview could be published in American Literary Review, I wasn’t sure at first. But I decided that it’s part of the “coming out” that The Lunatics’ Ball represents. I appreciated her questions.
Ashley Balcazar, "Creative Nonfiction and Poetic License, An Interview with Jacqueline Doyle," American Literary Review (Spring 2024)
 
Awards
 
Not many this year, but I was gratified when Current nominated “Shoplifting” for both Best of the Net and a Pushcart. Current has solicited two essays from me, which they paid for, and both were a perfect fit for a journal that is primarily political. I was pleased to publish them there.
 
I was excited when “(Parenthetical Asides)” (published in Centaur) was longlisted in the Wigleaf Top 50.
 
I was also excited when “Little Darling” (originally published in Wigleaf) made the longlist of the SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest, one of the top 41 of 1170 entries, and disappointed when it didn’t advance further.
 
A teacher myself, I’m always thrilled to hear that other writers have taught my work. Kathy Fish used “Little Darling” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” in her flash classes this year. Jill Talbot taught “Little Colored Pills” and “Haunting Houses” in her CNF classes at the University of North Texas. Will Woolfitt taught “The Madwoman on BART” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” in his classes at Lee University. Jasmine Sawers used “Little Darling” when she taught in SmokeLong Summer. Ashley Balcazar taught “My Blue Heaven” at the University of North Texas. Bailey Gaylin Moore taught “Imaginary Friends” at the University of Missouri. Ellen Blum Barrish taught “Dear Maddy” in her essay and memoir workshops.
 
Readings
 
I’ve been staying away from indoor venues because of Covid (the probable source of my heart problems), but I loved reading in the Racket series on the back patio at The Sycamore in the Mission (an unpublished flash from The Lunatics’ Ball that I’ve never read before). I read in Jon Sindell’s beautiful garden in the Outer Sunset in his Rolling Writers series. I also read in Francine Witte and Meg Pokrass’s wonderful online flash series The Prose Garden (my first time reading “The Lunatics’ Ball,” a shorter version of my title flash).
 
Editing
 
In January, I decided to reduce stress by reducing my editorial duties at CRAFT: I now do acquisitions and editing for creative nonfiction flash, and my former editorial assistant Shara Kronmal does acquisitions and editing for longform creative nonfiction. CRAFT earned another Notable Essay citation in Best American Essays (our fifth since I became our founding CNF editor four years ago). I love working with our EIC Courtney Harler, Shara and our great editorial assistants and reading team. Reading submissions, deciding on acceptances (we pay well, but therefore accept very few submissions), working on collaborative edits, honing down our contest lists, writing some of our introductions (very like the close reading I enjoyed when I was teaching): I love all of it. I couldn’t have imagined such a fulfilling part-time job, and I don’t think I could have managed it while I was teaching full time.
 
Teaching
 
I filled in for Grant Faulkner several times in the online “accountability” group that I’m also participating in. We have a standing arrangement that I will sub for him when he’s away. I visited Jill Talbot’s creative nonfiction class at the University of North Texas via Zoom for a lively discussion. I also participated in a panel of editors in Hannah Grieco’s advanced creative writing class at the Writer’s Center via Zoom.
 
I have a really great prospect for teaching flash next year that I superstitiously don’t want to specify until it’s materialized. Probably it will be more work than I think, but it should also be fun.
 
So here’s to 2025. Heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support in this sometimes difficult year. May we all prosper in our creative endeavors, despite the darkness and uncertainty ahead in the US and the world.
 
 
Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash