2012: Year in Review (part 1)

As I get ready to lock myself down for the production of my first feature film – oh my god, pinch me! I still can’t believe I’m making one of my biggest dreams come true! – I feel the need to take a moment to look back at the past twelve months. Sure, 2012 has been an intense roller-coaster ride (like most years are) and has had its share of bad stuff, but overall the positive outweighs the band and it’s been one of my most important, self-affirming year so far. I feel extremely lucky and thankful for the series of events that have brought me to the point where I am now and for the amazing people I can now call friends that I want to share everything with you. Are you ready? Here we go…  

  

 January: Fresh from having defended my master’s thesis, I was getting ready for my post-grad school life. It was a strange time as this was the first time in my life I did not have a definite plan nor knew where I was going or what I was going to do. All I knew with complete certainty was that 2012 would be the year I would be making my first feature. To do so, I would need money, so the search for a job began. January was quite beneficial as I finally got around doing a lot of things that had been lingering on my ‘to-do’ list for way too long, including FINALLY launching the Quirk Films website! I also started working for the Viscera Organization as the director of operations for the Mistresses of Horror Alliance (MOHA), its brand-new service!

February: I landed my first full-time day job at one of the places where I’d always dreamed of working. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, but oh boy that was quite a radical change of schedule! I ended up spending most of the month adapting to this new reality and trying to promote myself and my work, especially my shorts Red (which played twice in Europe) and T is for Toothpick which was being programmed as part of various Women in Horror Month events.

 

March: I kicked in the month by teaching a class on William Castle (which I created from scratch after reading his biography and watching his horror filmography over the span of three weeks!) at the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies; it confirmed that yes, teaching is something I really fucking love and want to do more of! Oh Academia, I already miss you! I also finished the first draft of DYS-, my upcoming feature film, and was featured as part of Dread Central’sIndie Horror Month. I also contributed to a cookbook featuring recipes by women horror filmmakers which came out around that time. Yes, it gave me the idea to make my own cookbook, which I’ll start working on… eventually.