An annual compendium of books, essays, music, films and other things I’ve been into over the course of the year.

In each edition of my newsletter, I share ongoing updates about the media that’s been making my head and heart sizzle, and the loved list is a reconstructed compilation of those recommendations. Here are some of the highlights from 2023:

💖 The first novel I read in 2023 was Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth, and it remained a highlight of my reading for the year. A sapphic gothic horror story set in a cursed turn-of-the-century New England boarding school? Sign me the eff up. A modern-day storyline about the horror movie adaptation of the school’s history of mysterious deaths? A messy queer love triangle and some on-point satire of contemporary celeb and social media culture? Yes, yes, yassss. Atmospheric, tense, smart, disturbing and delicious, it’s a doorstopper of a book but even after 600+ pages I still didn’t want it to end.

💖 In June this year, crime writing queen (and my amazing pal!) Claire Askew published her fifth novel, The Dead Don’t Speak. Another instalment in the brilliantly tense and meticulously crafted DI Birch series, it features our favourite detective being put to the test when she’s banned from getting involved in a dangerous unfolding case of an anonymous vigilante stalking the streets of Edinburgh. Totally absorbing (like everything Claire does).

💖 My favourite novel of the year was Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin (published in 2022 but read by me for the first time this year). Gross, violent, tense, totally original and strangely hopeful post-apocalyptic horror that I absolutely loved.

💖Around the same time, I read Houses Under the Sea by Caitlin R. Kiernan, a brilliantly written and deeply unsettling (long) short story that I couldn’t stop thinking about afterwards.

💖 This year’s edition of World Goth Day appropriately coincided with the publication of Cathi Unsworth‘s latest book, Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth. I love Cathi’s atmospheric novels in part because of the intricate way she weaves social history and culture into her plots, and her non-fiction always reflects that deep research and knowledge too. As as a former music journo, Unsworth truly knows her shit about this topic, which is a loving exploration of the romance, politics and legacy of goth counter-culture.

💖 While we’re at it: what makes goth so gay, and why are so many gays into gothic horror? Why Are People Into That? with Tina Horn is a brilliant in-depth podcast about sexuality and sexual psychology, and I loved this two-part interview with Laura Westengard, author of Gothic Queer Culture.

💖 Speaking of celebrations of subculture: 2023 was the year I finally watched the 2017 documentary Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution, featuring an all-star line-up including Kathleen Hanna, John Waters, Kim Gordon and Justin Vivian Bond, and a much-needed reminder of the power and impact of making your own culture.

💖 I can’t remember how I stumbled across the writing of Dana Leigh Lyons, but it happened some time during 2023, and I’m infinitely grateful for that. Dana is queer, sober and a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, writing thoughtful, soulful essays for those examining their relationship to alcohol and other drugs, social media and online technology, food and body, money and spending, work and external validation, and ways of perceiving and relating.

💖 On the themes of addiction, recovery and harm reduction (all topics very near and dear to my heart), this Slate profile of one of the helpline operators from Never Use Alone — who stay on the phone with people while they use drugs and send help if they suspect their caller has overdosed — was a poignant, powerful read.

💖 So much happened on a global level in 2023, much of it horrifying to witness, and they led to my returning to Molly Crabapple’s piece — We Must Risk Delight After a Summer Full of Monsters — almost a decade old now but still as relevant as ever.

💖  “Writing for Jezebel messed me up, made me better, made me tougher, made me meaner. Some of the things I learned there I had to slowly unlearn and unclench. But without it, I don’t think I ever would have had the courage to pursue a writing career.” Having read it most days for over a decade, I was gutted to see the end of Jezebel, but I enjoyed this loving tribute by Erin Gloria Ryan in Rolling Stone: Jezebel is Dead. Long Live Jezebel.

💖 Still want more? Here are some queer reading recommendations I shared as a tenuous tie-in to Pride month this year. Or for my fellow witches: here are three of my favourite magickal anthologies.

💖 For even more recommendations, you can dive into the archives and explore previous editions of the loved list: 2020 / 2021 / 2022