Litsa Dremousis's Blog: "Altitude Sickness" - Posts Tagged "gratitude"

I haven't posted here lately b/c my fiance´underwent brain surgery. His prognosis was great and now, post-surgery, I am profoundly grateful his prognosis remains stellar.

Still, they opened his fucking skull, so it's a giant deal and he'll be recovering for weeks. I feel for my guy so much. I'm taking care of him, but am so deeply grateful to our loved ones for all their assistance. One of my best friends, the writer and editor Jade Walker, actually flew across the country to help us. She's been here a week and a half and leaves Friday. One of the most remarkable acts of love and friendship I've known. That the world has known, really.

My friend Christy has sent amazing books for my fiance´ and will be helping w/ errands in the upcoming weeks. My brother drove us to the neuro follow-up today and then to the pharmacy and helped me grocery shop. My friend Alex is running an errand for us tonight. Fiance's friend has put in countless hours dogsitting. In upcoming days, more loved ones are dropping by w/ food, et al.

We are just so fucking grateful. Deeply, massively, beyond measure, beyond all-that-is-known-and-all-that-will-be-known-grateful.

I've taken a few weeks off from "Altitude Sickness" publicity and promotion for obvious reasons, but I'm also grateful to report there are upcoming interviews or features on or in Radio New Zealand, City Arts Magazine, and Seattle Magazine. Several more events are in the works, but I won't be announcing the dates 'til their locked.

And I'm grateful my segment for The Seattle Channel's "The Art Zone with Nancy Guppy" turned out so well. I've been a huge fan of Nancy's for years, so being on her show was a giant kick. In upcoming weeks, it will be running on both The Seattle Channel and on KCTS 9, Seattle's PBS affiliate. I've linked to it below.

Much more so than anything, I'm so glad my guy will be well.

As grateful as I am for everything surrounding "Altitude Sickness", nothing compares to the gratitude I feel regarding his health. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Nothing could compare.

My Seattle Channel segment below. Love and happy holidays to all:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos?...

After a long hiatus, I'll be writing here again b/c it feels fun again.

A few things:

1) On Goodreads, I tend to review and star books generously. If an author accomplishes what s/he set out to do, well, that's the whole point. It doesn't have to be meet my personal tastes. Also, I usually star and review books as I read them, but sometimes I don't. I.e. not that this is keeping you up at night, but the book I've most recently mentioned is not necessarily the one I've most recently read. Whew! *All the important problems are solved now.*

2) Fourteen months after its release, "Altitude Sickness" is still garnering wonderful reviews and I'm deeply grateful. A print edition will be out in 2016--I won't go into detail just yet but there are some amazing independent publishers in this world--and I have an essay in the upcoming anthology on writers and depression, "Done Darkness". I'm working on my essay collection and on my novel "Low Blood Sugar".

3) My webmaster is redesigning my site, so please disregard some of the formatting, but here's a compendium of reviews, print interviews, podcast interviews, and radio interviews surrounding "Altitude Sickness". We'll soon be adding several videos from readings I gave this past year. But "Altitude Sickness" has been so well-received and, like I said, I'm deeply grateful:

http://litsadremousis.com/altitude-si...

Dudes! We did it! The holiday season is nearly over! Mine turned out to be surprisingly fun. I hope yours was enjoyable, too. And if it sucked, remember we've all been there and you're not alone. People care.

To the best possible year-end wrap-up for all of us!