Smale Christmas 2016

2016? Wow. What a year.

Okay, let's leave aside everything that happened in the wider world and start up close with lifestyle and home news. In January we decided to experiment with vegan cooking for a month. We liked it so much we carried on for the whole year, and now plan to keep going indefinitely. We were scrupulously vegan for January, and after that we relaxed the rules a bit. At home we still cook entirely vegan, but when we're out we go with the flow because it's just too hard to do anything else, and who doesn't want some sushi or really good cheese every now and then?

(Don't worry, we still drink wine and spirits. And if you invite us for dinner we'll come and eat heartily whatever you're serving up.)

We're keeping active, walking and running, doing yoga and Pilates, and occasional biking. Karen hurt her foot in early October, so the running has stopped for a while for her until things improve. At home we had a brand new deck built in August, which we inaugurated with a party in October. And in November we got Alan's office and the downstairs bathroom de-wallpapered and repainted, at last completing our twenty-year project of fixing up every room in the house. It must be time to start over again!

The Clash of Eagles saga continues... Alan's second book, Eagle in Exile, came out in March from Random House/Del Rey (US) and Titan Books (UK and Europe), and just as he did for Book One, he spent a substantial amount of time on interviews, guest blogs, signings, and other promotional activities associated with the release. Otherwise, his main project was the completion of the third and final book in the arc, Eagle and Empire. The book is now complete, accepted, and copyedited, and will go on sale in May 2017. The cover features his female protagonist, Sintikala, and is beauteous to behold. In June, while Alan was waiting for editorial comments on the book, he wrote an alternate history story about the Wright Brothers (and Sister) called "Kitty Hawk". The story sold to Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and will appear in their March 2017 issue. He is very happy with his writing year, and is now scouting around for new projects!

All this literary excitement aside, Alan still has his day job as HEASARC Director at NASA/GSFC, and for the last third of the year he also served as Acting Chief Scientist for the PCOS (Physics of the Cosmos) Program Office. No rest for the wicked. Karen still has her day job, too, providing useful web sites for 3000 scientists at Goddard and the science community in general.

As always, we've done a healthy dose of traveling this year. In March, we went to Tucson to visit Karen's mom and check out the Tucson Book Festival. In April, Alan went to the High Energy Astrophysics meeting in Naples, FL. Together we went on vacation in July to Vancouver with friends Terry, John, and Vera, and from there went by ourselves to Whistler. After that, Alan traveled solo to San Diego Comic Con to promote his books. In August we did an eight-state road trip to Kansas City, MO, for the World Science Fiction Convention, which included a short visit with Karen's cousins Sharon and David, whom we hadn't seen since our wedding. And in September we went to England to visit Alan's parents in Yorkshire and also hang out in Oxford for a few days. Alan went to a conference in Oxford in honor of his doctoral supervisor, Phil Charles, who retired this year, while Karen wandered the dreaming spires and took lots of excellent photographs. To round out September, Alan headed off in the opposite direction on a work trip for JPL. Somewhat oddly for a NASA dude, it was the first time he had ever been there.

Yep, we're still in a band, and The Chromatics are going strong. Over the year we performed at the Farpoint science fiction convention, an environmental summit/STEM event at St. Stephens and St. Agnes private episcopal school, the National Air and Space Museum, the New Deal Café, the Brookside Festival of Lights, and the Greenbelt Arts Center, and also performed a live set that was broadcast on Acaville Internet Radio. Even more fun: we went back into the recording studio, with seven songs laid down so far. We hope to finish our as-yet-unnamed eighth(!) album early in 2017, and launch a whole new set of gigs to promote it. Stay tuned -- we try to!

Happy Holidays!

Alan     alansmale@gmail.com
Karen     karen.smale@gmail.com

• Alan's writing life
• The Chromatics
• AstroCappella: our astronomy-related singing
• Alan's Facebook
• Karen's Facebook (including lots of photo albums of the above events)
• Karen's Flickr albums
• The Chromatics Facebook
• AstroCappella Facebook