This year is about Writing. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, coming from a writer, but the last couple of years have been, well, distracting, not to put too fine a point on it. So even though many aspects of my life are the same, and I am as pushed for time as I ever was, I am bringing a writerly focus to it all.
It's starting off well:
1. I sent off my first manuscript in years, after fabulous feedback from a colleague's 10 year old daughter and her friend (thanks, young Kate!) It needs work, but the act of completing it was A Thing.
2. Below is New York, in which I met up with the wondrous Patricia McMahon, co-author of my current project. We went to see The ABC: Why Children's Books Matter at the New York Public Library, curated by Leonard S Marcus. We both cried, listening to EB White himself read the end of Charlotte's Web. At other times, we trotted through Central Park, thrashed over our manuscript over lunch and dinner, took ourselves to the theatre. New York was fabulousness itself, despite the polar vortex that was being visited upon the city for the duration of our visit. It restoreth the soul.
3. I am chairing three sessions at the Perth Writers' Festival (see here for details.) I've never loved reading a bunch of books so much, and while I'm aware that really I should be a bundle of nerves at this point, I'm way too excited for that. Hannah Kent, AJ Betts, Will Kostakis, Claire Zorn, Joe Ducie, Sarah Turnbull, William McInnes.
4. Who knows, I might blog more, about Actual Writing this year.
Stay tuned. Stay warm. Stay well.
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| Grand dames meet up at Grand Central |
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| New York Public Library: hitherto only read about in books |
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| This should be a travelling show (hint). It featured 'our' Shaun Tan, too. |
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| When advertising fails to anticipate Big Events |
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| Imagining in minus gazillion temperatures |
