Quotas traumatizing children
Ten-year-old Elizabeth with her mother
ICE needs to leave
Two hearts
Detained, in custody
No pictures
Other students
Held at the same facility
Source: “5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and father return to Minnesota from ICE facility in Texas,” AP News, February 1, 2026
“They are not dead.” Karin sounded as tired as the grasses had. “But they are dying. Tell me, Liza, do you believe that spring will come?”
Why ask me? I was no plant mage. “The adults in my town believe it.” They believed in spite of the gray trees and the gray skies, the failed crops and the too-long winter.
“So it is with the human adults in my town as well.” Karin held a hand out to the falling snow as we walked on. Snowflakes melted against her skin. “Yet I have never heard the trees so quiet. They yearn for darkness, and some have given way to it. Others slip into sleep, accepting that they may never wake. I am told this is the way of your world. It is not the way of mine. I have never known a forest that was not green. What do you believe?”
–Faerie Winter
My stories are often quite chatty, telling me what they want to be, what they’re meant to be. But this story is silent, at least about this, as if to say, “This time, you have to choose, not me.”
Anyway, my first “Are You Listening” draw for 2026 was The Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice.”
Make of that what you will.
New Year: Hi, I’m new! Have we met?
Me: Yeah, you always say that. But we met right here last year. I remember.
NY: That must have been my brother. Everyone says we look alike.
Me: No one invited you. Either of you.
NY: What’d you expect, an RSVP? You know it doesn’t work that way.
Me: No one wants you.
NY: You mean you don’t want me.
Me: Yeah, whatever. We … I … have enough going on right now. I can’t deal with you, too.
NY: Deal with me? Deal with me? I’m opportunity, I’m growth, I’m a chance for change, I’m the birthday of the whole damn world!
Me: That’s what you said last year. Yet here we are.
NY: That wasn’t me.
Me: Like you’re any different?
NY: I could be different. If you try hard enough.
Me: You know nothing good ever begins with “I can change him.”
NY: Who said anything about changing me? I meant changing you.
Me: Oh no you don’t. No way. I led an okay life this past year. Not perfect, but okay. Nothing I did made me deserve you.
NY: Yet here we are.
Me: …
Me: Are we really doing this?
NY: Seems so.
Me: Wait, you don’t want to be here either?
NY: It doesn’t matter what I want.
Me: I know that feeling.
Me: Listen, I can’t fix … (throws arms up) … all this. I can’t.
NY: Fair.
Me: The best I can do is maybe repair a little corner or two. Small things.
NY: Okay.
Me: That’s all I have. I’m sorry.
NY: Did I say that wasn’t enough?
Me: Didn’t you?
NY: I didn’t say anything. I’m a religious and chronological construct. You said that.
Me: Is it enough?
NY: …
Me: Well it’s all I have. Maybe I can find a little more. Maybe. But it still won’t be all you need.
NY: So you think you’re going into this year alone?
Me: It doesn’t matter. Even all of us who care, working together, giving all we have to give. It still won’t be enough.
NY: Are you going to give it anyway?
Me: I thought you said you didn’t know me.
NY: See you at sunset?
Me: Do I have a choice?
NY: Always.
Me: (deep breath) I’ll be there.
Me: You know I will.
I started 2024 hungry for stories, and I read (and reread) more books this year than I have in a decade or more. A few that have stayed with me, for one reason or another:
May 2025 be filled with stories as well, and may we lean into the comfort and the challenge that they bring us.
When I begin to despair or feel overwhelmed by national news, one of the most helpful responses I know is to turn my focus back to my local community and local politics—not just because local events have a more immediate impact on me, but also because I can have a more immediate impact on local events.
Quality local news coverage is critical to being locally aware. If you’re in Tucson, here are three small locally run, locally focused independent news outlets you can support right now.
All of these news sources are available to read for free. But they also all have subscribe, support, or donate options. If you want to do something concrete right now–if you want to support something that matters right now–supporting these outlets would be an excellent place to start.
Not in Tucson? Tell us about local independent news outlets you find worth supporting in the comments.
Some things I’ve been holding to in recent days:
“Side with the child over the gun every single time, no matter whose gun and no matter whose child.” —Naomi Klein, Side With the Child Over the Gun,
“No one had this coming to them. There is no history, background, theory, analysis, oppression, harm or grievance that justifies what Hamas did. None.” —Rachel Timoner, Do Not Take Your Mezuza off Your Door
“Trauma is everywhere right now, and for good reason. That’s why you as a fiction writer help save the world.” —Lani Diane Rich
“If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it.” —Madeleine L’Engle, The Arm of the Starfish
“We cannot cross until we carry each other,
all of us refugees, all of us prophets.
No more taking turns on history’s wheel,
trying to collect old debts no-one can pay.
The sea will not open that way.”
—Aurora Levins Morales: Red Sea: April 2002
Honestly, I’m not sure I’m ready for a new year. There’s so much that feels unresolved from the old year, and the years before it, as well. It’s already been one heck of a decade, and I find myself moving forward with as much trepidation as hope.
But, well, time doesn’t care about that sort of thing, and I’ve passed through enough new years (on three different calendars) to know that they never wait for us to feel prepared for them.
So here we are, standing amid loss and change and plague but still standing, and moving forward even. Because there’ll be moments of joy in the year ahead, too, so the least we can do is gather up the courage to meet them.
And so we do. So we do.
A good and a brave new year to you all.
My short story “Heart’s Desire” is now online at Read Me A Story, Ink., a reading resource site for kids, parents, and teachers. Take a look–or a listen!
“PERFUME SCENTED the air as my stepsisters left the house, trading names of princes they longed to dance with at the ball. My stepmother, Vivienne, crossed the room behind them, taking Papa’s hand with a small, elegant smile. ‘There’s still time, Cinderella,’ she told me. ‘We’ll hold the coach while you dress.’
“I shook my head, and Vivienne frowned. I knew what she was thinking. Ungrateful child—after all I do for you. She often spoke such words aloud, when my father couldn’t hear.
“I frowned back while Papa glanced between us, looking trapped. But he said only, ‘Be good, Cinderella,’ before following my stepmother outside. Papa spoke little, so I sometimes wondered how he’d found enough words to ask for Vivienne’s hand.
“I closed the door behind them, listening as the carriage bells faded into the night.
“Alone at last! I reached beneath the sofa, grabbing the book I’d hidden there, and settled down to read in one of my mother’s patched old dresses. I thought of Charlotte and Jeannette, squeezing tighter and tighter into their bodices. What was the point of clothes if you couldn’t do anything in them?
“I sighed. Six hours until they returned, assuming they left the ball at midnight as planned — six hours during which Vivienne couldn’t snatch the book away, hand me a mop or dust rag, and tell me to make myself useful …”
