My office is clean, organized, and I just poured myself a cup of tea. That means its time to do what many others are currently doing: reflect on goals and aspirations for 2025. I remain steadfast in my avoidance of labeling them “resolutions,” as to me, they create a lot of pressure with minimal flexiblity. Instead, I prefer to refer to these goals and aspirations.
To begin, I’d be remiss if I didn’t reflect on 2024. Technically, as a writer, I have not put out a full body of work since my chapbook of poems, Casting Seeds (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) three years ago. It feels like a lifetime and throughout most of 2023, I felt immense guilt for not churning out more work after three back-to-back releases since 2020. I needed some rest and 2024 became my year of resoluteness: I discovered I measured my output based on the other writers in my life, which aggravated that guilt I was feeling. I learned to embrace taking downtime between projects because what we do in the liminal spaces of output matters. With much discomfort at first, I began to celebrate the small accomplishments bit-by-bit, then, discovered that I was actually accomplishing pretty notable things that I was downplaying. After all, western society always convinces us to downplay our own momentum, does it not? So, I’d like to celebrate some of my 2024 accomplishments on both writing and media fronts:
AN EXTENDED PLAY OF MUSIC & POETRY – URGENT FIRE (WITH BROTHERWELL)
As a poet (and former musician), I never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to combine my poetry with music. I’m grateful the universe coaxed Brotherwell and I to cross paths. The past few years, we worked together on songs here and there, but to have the chance to work on an entire album with a concept, I never believed it’d happen until this past year. Back in January 2024, we released Urgent Fire, an extended play of four spoken word songs examining current events, mental health, and so much more. There’s much more from us to come! (Will discuss later)
WORK ON THE GODZILLA: 70th ANNIVERSARY ANTHOLOGY
Similar to my thrill about my work on music, having the chance to write for an official Godzilla comic story was not on my bingo-card. I’ve discussed it at length in interviews and on my podcast Growing Up With Godzilla; however, when my friend Matt Frank approached me to write poetry for a character in his story, “In the Shadow of a God,” I eagerly accepted. Not only did it help me learn about the comicbook writing world but it built a friendship with someone I respect considerably. Fast-forward throughout the year, it led to me having the opportunity to speak at G-FEST 2024 on the Kaiju Writer’s Panel, a co-signing session, and led to a number of guest appearance opportunities on some podcasts, including but not limited to: United Kaiju Podcast, Kaiju Conversation LIVE, Collect All Monsters, Tomes of Evil, and SKREEONK! As a writer and lifelong Godzilla fan, 2024 marked a major milestone for me in this regard.
CONCLUDING OUR PODCAST “RESTITCHING THE TAPESTRY“
A major part of my life since 2020 was our podcast Restitching the Tapestry. Ari Whipple, my friend of 20 years, joined forces with me to discuss current events, pop culture, social justic, and art regularly on Thursday evenings. After 5 seasons and 180 episodes, we decided to conclude the show. It was an emotional end; however, looking back on all we’ve accomplished, I’m incredibly proud. We covered a lot of ground, had revelations, shared poetry, cried together, laughted together… and so much more. If anything, I’m most grateful for the friendship I’ve cultivated with Ari, and I’m happy viewers will always be able to watch (or listen) to our massive project. If you’d like to listen to Restitching the Tapestry on YouTube, click the image above. Otherwise, it can be found on streaming services.
COMPLETING SEASON 3 OF MY PODCAST “GROWING UP WITH GODZILLA“
I’d be remiss to not mention the completion of season 3 of my Godzilla podcast, Growing Up With Godzilla! The show has started to take off, to the extent where attendees at G-FEST 2024 ACKNOWLEDGED it. 2025 will mark the show’s 4th season starting in February.
MAJOR POETRY READINGS: THE QUEER CONFESSIONAL & CASTING SEEDS
I had two major poetry readings throughout 2024: THE QUEER CONFESSIONAL during Pride Month and CASTING SEEDS in late summer. Both of them were a huge success. Special thank you to Lolobees Lounge in Bay City, MI and the Roethke Museum in Saginaw, MI for hosting. If you’d like to watch either reading, you can find them on my poetry YouTube channel via the links above.
Here are some other accomplishments I’d like to list:
- Getting 11 poems published
- My poem “The Symphony of Sullen Warnings” placing first runner-up in Wingless Dreamer’s Petals and Pines 2024 poetry contest
- My book Feats of Alchemy was listed as a Favorite Book of 2024 on Walden’s Poetry
- Starting and sustaining a successful newsletter for PFLAG Great Lakes Bay Region, a local LGBTQ+ organization
- Becoming a board member on Friends of Roethke, a local organization charged with protecting the legacy of Theodore Roethke
- Facilitating a partnership with Friends of Roethke, distributing my Oct/POEM/ber Poetry Challenge to a wider audience
- Guest appearing on a local podcast, Saginaw Valley Spoken Word Podcast, to discuss my career as a queer poet
- Being invited as a guest speaker at Delta College for an Author’s Spotlight
- Guest appearing for 3 episodes on the Star Trek podcast, IDIC – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
- Helping launch a literary magazine for Delta College called 1961
- Resumed the podcast series “Universal Journeys” with my dear friend Brenda Bates.
- Participated in an author’s reception facilitated by Bookmarks in Midland, MI
- Guest appeared at Great Lakes Bay Pride with Leopard Print Books
Looking back on this list accomplishments in 2024, my immediate insecurity is: how will I catch lightning in a bottle again? One of my major goals this year is to ignore that voice – because it creates a pressure and fear of failure. Instead, I’m trying to affirm myself by saying: our accomplishments vary and take different shapes depending on where we are in life. In 2025, I may accomplish one thing as opposed to a dozen and ultimately, that’s completely okay. This capitalistic assembly line we’re on inbeds this deep conditioning that we must constantly need to churn out content and accomplishments. I’ve found that when I fall prey to that, fear-based ambition short-circuits actual output. 2025 will be about continuing to unlearn that conditioning and replacing these fear-based habits with grace-granting ones.
Despite my TedTalk in the prior paragraph, I don’t want my being cognizant of fear-based ambition to negate my excitement for what’s to come. As always, a new year brings new goals and aspirations. Here is my 2025 list:
- GET MARRIED: I’m getting married this year in November! I’m pretty stoked about this! Anyway, I’d be ridiculous not to list this first!
- READ MORE: Since working as a teacher involves a lot of reading, I find myself depleted when it comes to liesurely reading after coming home from work. In 2025, I’d like to carve out more time for casual reading. In fact, my friend Ari (who I mentioned before) has been sharing some thoughtful tricks about low-stress reading that have empowered me. I plan to start a reading journal, read at least 1 book a month, and actually use my Kindle to improve my access to reading material.
- FINALIZE AND SEND OUT MY CHAPBOOK: Yes, I’m nearly done writing a chapbook of poems! I don’t want to share too many details, but I’m finishing up some final poems and organizing. I’ll be sending it to my editors some time in the next month or two. Then, it’s going out to publishers!
- FINISH MY NEXT FULL-LENGTH POEM COLLECTION: I’m about 75% through completing my next full-length book of poems. I doubt it will be released this year but that’s progress, right?
- BEGIN WORK ON A FICTION SHORT-STORY COLLECTION: This is probably an unexpected one, but yes, I am slowly getting back into writing fiction. In fact, I’m hoping this short-story collection will lead to a full-length novel series. It’s ambitious (oh the irony considering my ambition tirade earlier); however, we writers dream big don’t we?
- FINISH ANOTHER EP WITH BROTHERWELL: We are beginning work on the next segment of what will be a full-length album of poetry and music.
- SUBMIT (AND HOPEFULLY GET ACCEPTED) A GODZILLA COMIC BOOK PITCH: Throughout late 2024, I’ve worked on sending out Godzilla comic pitches to IDW Publishing. I haven’t had any bites yet, but I’m not giving up. I have a lot of stories in me, so, one of my goals is to score my own Godzilla story in comic book form. I don’t care if it is a limited series or one-off, I’m just excited to stretch myself to other genres outside of poetry.
- WRITE A BLOG POST PER MONTH: I honestly should use my website blog more!
- WORK ON PROMOTING WORK MORE: Marketing is always this writer’s worst enemy – it is quite time consuming!
I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to accomplish this list throughout 2025; however, I’m excited to forge forward and do my very best. As we navigate this year, I wish both writers and readers love and creative energy. Let’s keep doing what we love because we owe ourselves this enrichment. Happy New Year!
XoXo
Donny Winter
Donny Winter 