From 2025 to 2026

Every new year, I write an annual review post. I've been doing this since 2009, which was essentially the start of my life as an author. In the early years I listed a lot of things that I did and places I went to. In the last few years, that kind of counting has felt less significant to me — possibly because I haven't been writing as much, but also because quantity is not as impressive to me anymore. I think that as I get older, I want to do fewer things more slowly and deeply, to slow time down and appreciate what is happening in the moment.

So I'm writing this post sitting in my orange armchair in my attic, under a blue blanket, on the afternoon of Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. I've just had a  cup of Ti Kuan Yin tea, after returning from a chilly walk with Leia in the tiny patch of woods in our neighborhood. The paths under the bare trees were icy, and I almost slipped and fell more than once. The weather has been especially frigid in the last couple of weeks, but I appreciated the bright sunny sky today, and I also appreciated my very warm coat and hat.

In the last year, I worked through three drafts of my next book, UNTITLED PROJECT (UP), and right before the Christmas holiday, I finished what I believe is the "final" draft. This doesn't mean there won't be changes — there will be copyedits, and a few other changes that I know will be coming, and the whole book design process is ahead, too.

Since I sent this off to my editor and agent, I've been attempting to "rest." UP has really tired me out. I feel the exhaustion deeply in my bones,  as if this book has been pulling the energy out of me for months and I'm only now realizing that I've been drained. The exhaustion is a little startling, to be honest, but maybe I should have foreseen it. This book has had a psychic cost that my other books did not have. After each draft, I dealt with some kind of physical response that was extremely intense: weeks of headaches, muscle pain, insomnia, general twitchiness. I don't know when my exhaustion will lift, but I hope it will be soon.

So I've been trying to "rest." But I also do want to take stock of the past year, so yesterday I sat down with my bullet journal and my Google calendar and went through all the things that happened in 2025. Here is my annual review:

🚫 It was a big, bad year for book bans.

  • Last Night at the Telegraph Club was banned statewide in South Carolina, as well as in school districts in Iowa, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. These bans led to LNATTC becoming the fourth most banned book in American schools during the 2024-25 school year, according to PEN America.

  • PEN America also determined that LNATTC was the 30th most banned book in American schools since 2021, when this wave of censorship began.

  • A Scatter of Light was banned in two school districts in Tennessee.

  • I wrote an op-ed for the South Carolina Daily Gazette asking, Why is sex so scary to book banners?

  • I had my first national television appearance when I was a guest on Ali Velshi's Banned Book Club on MSNBC.

  • I was an honoree at the Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards.

✈️ Travel: I traveled to Florida twice and Colorado twice. I went to Washington, D.C., and Poughkeepside, NY. I went on a Buddhist retreat in central Massachusetts.

📚 Reading: I read at least 60 books in 2025. (I read many other books for research but did not write them down in my reading log.) My five favorite books that I read in 2025, in the order in which I read them, were:

    • How To Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

    • A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen

    • The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

    • A Little Daylight Left by Sarah Kay

    • The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly

🍸 Last Night at the Telegraph Club had a banner year in 2025, four years after it was first published.

Looking Ahead

In 2026, I'm looking forward to telling you all about UNTITLED PROJECT. (Seriously! You will know more in a few weeks, I promise.) I'm also looking forward to starting work on my next next book immediately — like on Monday. I've noticed that when I don't write or have a project I'm working on, I don't function well as a human being. So in 2026 I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I prioritize writing over the countless other things that call my attention daily.

At the start of December, as I moved into the final weeks of revision on UP, I set my phone to turn on Do Not Disturb automatically from 9 am to 2 pm, Monday through Friday. A few people are allowed to message me, but only a very few. I also removed my email from my phone, and for some reason this took a huge load of stress off. I'm going to continue this in 2026, so from 9 am to 2 pm, I'll be writing. (By writing I mean all sorts of things related to a book project, including planning, research, and thinking.)

In 2026, I also plan to rehaul this newsletter, my website, and social media, and I will tell you more about this in the next couple of months as I figure it out.

Finally, in 2026, I hope to make time for hobbies. Yes, hobbies! I love to cook, and I want to be able to make some more elaborate things that require several hours to make. I really enjoyed making Smitten Kitchen's gingerbread yule log for Christmas, and I want to have time to do more stuff like that. I also hope to make time to take photos with my 1950s-era Yashicaflex film camera. I did some photo shoots last fall and I really enjoyed the way using this camera forced me to be present and to see the real world.

I hope that you will also have time in 2026 for hobbies that bring you joy. I hope you will read wonderful books, and I hope that you'll spend time with the people you love. May you be safe and happy, and may your 2026 be filled with peace. 🙏🏼

FeaturesMalinda Loannual review