Malinda Lo

I can’t believe it’s already February! Which reminded me that I thought it might be fun (for me) this year to do a monthly recap of what I’ve been up to. So, here’s a roundup of what I did in January:

January in News

The American Library Association released its 2011 best-of lists, and Huntress made it onto three of them! It’s on the Best Fiction for Young Adults, the Amelia Bloomer Project List, and is a Top 10 book on the Rainbow List.

Huntress was also honored by the Chicago Public Library, which included it on their Best of the Best Books for Teens.

And while this happened yesterday (so technically in February), I’m listing this here anyway: Huntress is also on the 2011 Locus Recommended Reading List in the YA category! (And that’s an awesome list in general if you’re looking for sf/f to read, so check it out.)

As I said yesterday on Twitter:

January in Writing

I spent all of January working on the rough draft of the sequel to Adaptation. Every day that I work on the sequel, I’ve been recording my progress on Tumblr with a photo and a word count. Here’s one of my favorite writing days:

And here’s where I was, as of February 1 (I couldn’t post on Tumblr on Jan. 31 because Tumblr was down):

And, yes, those photos mean something to me. If you want to see what other photos I come up with , feel free to follow me on Tumblr.

January in Reading

Last month I read an amazing novel that I’m going to tell you a lot more about soon. For now, I’ll just say this: I will read anything that Sarah Waters blurbs, and this is what she said:

“Danforth’s narrative of a bruised young woman finding her feet in a complicated world is a tremendous achievement: strikingly unsentimental, and full of characters who feel entirely rounded and real. A story of love, desire, pain, loss—and, above all, of survival. An inspiring read.” — Sarah Waters, author of THE LITTLE STRANGER

This book comes out next week! I strongly suggest you go and get yourself a copy:

B&N | Amazon

January in Photos

Last month I went out to Point Reyes for a lunch of barbecued oysters (yum) and a hike along the coast. A lot of cattle graze out at Point Reyes, and while there are plenty of present-day, active ranches in the area, there are also some abandoned, ruinous ones. I love those the best. Here are some photos of an old, abandoned ranch on Point Reyes:

Inside the old barn

Light through the boards

Hay bales

Dairy, abandoned

In the distance, the sea

All in all, a very good start to 2012.