This is my last post for 2025, and I thought it would be as good a time as any to do a quick year in review. So much has happened in 2025, both for me as a writer and to the world at large.
In my darkest moments, 2025 feels like one of the worst times to become an author. Traditional publishing is lost, trying and failing to say relevant in a world dominated by social media and the hollow interactions it thrives on, constantly chasing people’s increasingly ephemeral attention spans, refusing to recognize and stand in solidarity over the threat that generative AI poses to the field and art at large.
Indie publishing isn’t much better off. Self-published authors like me have to contend with the AI slop deluge. When we hit that “publish” button to release our works, they immediately get lost in a flood of garbage.
But, despite all this doom and gloom, I’ve been very fortunate. In my personal life, I married my partner of nine years, and my mother made a much-anticipated visit from the US to our home in Germany.
In terms of my writing, 2025 saw me release my first novel, Nytho. It also saw me make my first sale to a professional fiction magazine in the form of my short story “The Seed“, which Clarkesworld Magazine purchased rights to. I attended my first book convention, Fantasticon, where I served on a panel, did an author reading, and connected with readers in the book sale room.
If that wasn’t enough, in the second half of the year, I released my second novel, Neuen, sold another short story to Clarkesworld, “Wireworks“, and attended my second book convention, Lundcon. Throughout the whole year, I also received fan mail from readers, which I have to say is such a welcome balm. Kind words do worlds in helping restore faltering motivation.
Being an author can be hard. It very much feels like screaming into the void, but the connections I’ve made both with my readers and with other authors makes the journey so worthwhile. I have a story to tell, one which will span 16 novels and many more short stories. I appreciate anyone and everyone who joins me on this arduous but satisfying trek that will be my Alfom series.
If you’re interested in giving me the endurance to keep plodding along, here are a few things you can do:
- Review or simply rate my works, the novels and short stories, on Goodreads, Amazon, The StoryGraph, Indie Story Geek, or elsewhere
- Follow me on Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky
- Send me a message via email (sheri@sherisingerling.com) or my social media accounts
- Nominate anything of mine you particularly enjoyed for awards:
- Hugo Awards
- Nebula Awards (voting by SFWA members only)
- Locus Awards
- Ursula K. Le Guin Prize
- Dragon Award
- Astounding Award for Best New Writer (“The Seed” and “Wireworks” qualify me for this)
- Tell others about my work
- Keep reading my stuff (this is the whole point, after all!)
Here’s to my first year as a published author! Let’s see what 2026 has in store.
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