Winter News Bulletin
Hi friends,
The biggest news I have to share is that the wonderful Terri-ann White from Upswell Publishing has agreed to publish my debut memoir about working at the LGBTIQ Legal Service, which will be out in May 2024. I really love what Terri-ann has done with Upswell since she began it a couple of years ago and am really proud to be a small part of her vision.
My deadline is 1st September so I am busy working to get a decent draft to her by then. Stressful!
I was able to get a good start on this during a two-week writers residency at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre in Greenmount in WA in May where I got to meet Terri-ann IRL for dinner too.
The second piece from the series of four short essays that I will be publishing with the Griffith Review Online is out, it’s a love letter to calls for submissions. I’m working on another one for them called “The Tubs” which will be out in August.
I’ve also got a rare fiction piece in the latest edition of Island magazine about mysterious penis fish called Urechis Caupo. I read a bit of that out at the Q-Lit Event in Geelong which was fun too.
I tackled the anti-trans protesters in my first real straight up news article for the The Saturday Paper a few months back, and they even had me on their 7am podcast. Quite surreal since I listen to it every day. I was starstruck!
Back in May Yves, Sasja and I did a Nothing to Hide panel at the Bendigo Writers Festival. Later that weekend I ran a How to Make Radio workshop which was a fun change of topic for me.
Tomorrow, I’ll be running another Nothing to Hide panel at the Gender, Sex and Sexualities Conference via zoom which you can watch online for free if you are keen. This weekend I’m appearing at an an Emerging Writers Festival/Willy Lit Festival Crossover event this Sunday called Westside Writers Salon. That’s free too! It’s at Williamstown Hall if you feel like joining.
My other very exciting news is that I am a recipient of an Arts Council of Australia grant to advance my second WIP manuscript Pit Pony, which is about working for legal aid in the La Trobe Valley. I was very surprised to receive this grant as I’d always heard it’s very difficult to get funding for literature through them, so I am most humbled and desperate to make the most of it. I’m going to get seriously cracking on that as soon as I hand in my first manuscript, and off for a weekend in the Tarra Bulga National Park in late July to do some research/go on some winter bushwalks.
That’s all the news from me for now :)
