A Year of Favorites: Sean H. Doyle

Year Of Favorites 2014

List/Award Culture is such a strange thing. We’re all sitting around waiting to hear our names called and we’re all putting our blood and sweat into what we do. This is not a list as much as a celebration of people/things that I enjoyed by people I know or wish I knew. As far as I am concerned, anyone who can keep their ass in the chair long enough to create a thing and then put that thing out in the world is a champion.

Books by people I know/have communicated with/wish I knew better or even at all birthed in 2014 that I read and loved and I think you may read and love as well:

Excavation: A Memoir — Wendy C. Ortiz

Things To Make and Break — May-Lan Tan

Pity the Animal — Chelsea Hodson

The Self Unstable — Elissa Gabbert

Kill Manual — Cassandra Troyan

Preparation for the Next Life — Atticus Lish

Made To Break — D. Foy

Conversations With the Stone Wife — Natalie Eilbert

Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky — David Connerly Nahm

Songs Only You Know — Sean Madigan Hoen

Black Cloud — Juliet Escoria

Faces in the Crowd — Valeria Luiselli

High as the Horse’s Bridles — Scott Cheshire

OHSO — Mike Bushnell

Every Kiss a War — Leesa Cross-Smith

That’s When the Knives Come Down — Dolan Morgan

Where To? A Hack Memoir — Dmitry Samarov

The Old Neighborhood — Bill Hillmann

Once I Was Cool — Megan Stielstra

If Only You People Could Follow Directions — Jessica Hendry Nelson

 

Albums that came out in 2014 that pushed me around and I would like nothing more than to sneak them onto everyone’s personal music library device:

Clearing the Path to Ascend — YOB

To Be Kind — SWANS

A World Only Lit By Fire — Godflesh

Interrupt — Bleeding Rainbow

If Anything — Greys

Salt EP — Institute

Demimonde — Maniac

Vile Art — Ritual Mess

Divide and Exit — Sleaford Mods

Typical System — Total Control

Refractory Obdurate — Wovenhand

Easy Pain — Young Widows

And Blow Us A Kiss — Azar Swan

 

Things that happened to me in 2014 that made me feel like the world was a decent place and maybe we all deserve to live:

Starting a podcast with Eric “Little Brother Sunshine” Nelson and somehow bullying/conning Tobias “Paddington” Carroll and Jason “King Cozy” Diamond into letting us run the fucking thing on Volume One Brooklyn. All the rad people we got to sit down and talk with. Eric’s never-wavering sense of goodness and humor. Mellow Pages Library for letting us use their space, for existing. Anyone and everyone who ever listened.

Popsickle Fest, which blew my fucking mind. Everyone was beautiful and everyone was incredible. Almost twelve full hours of poetry flowing, vibes vibing, love loving, all put together with the heartmeats of JD Scott and Niina Pollari. Amazing people. Amazing event.

AWP in Seattle. My god[s]. Somehow managing to keep a straight face while being video’d by Juliet Escoria about heroin while Jamie Iredell and Scott McClanahan kept making faces at me and making grunting sounds. The teriyaki joint Matty “Champ” Nelson took me to. The legend of “Neckman.” Hanging out with my psychic twin, Wendy C. Ortiz and witnessing so many of the strange things we both witnessed and being thankful we had each other as witnesses. All the tiny avatar faces turning into real faces with contours and smiles. Jim Ruland! Chiwan Choi! Patrick O’Neill! Matthew Simmons! Cari Luna! Amy McDaniel! Lindsey Gates-Merkel! Diya Chaudhuri! Jacob Knabb!

Somehow convinced Civil Coping Mechanisms to publish a book of my weird shit. Getting to know Michael J. Seidlinger, the last true believer, the last starfighter.

 

Basically, I am saying I am fucking thankful for 2014. Let’s get on with it.

 

Sean H. Doyle lives in Brooklyn, NY. He works hard every day to be a better person and is learning how to love himself more. His book THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is forthcoming from Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2015. seanhdoyle.com @seanhdoyle

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