News, So Much News

It seems that nothing happens and then everything happens all at once.

I had my additional breast screen tests and am so relieved to say that I simply have a cyst and it will take care of itself. It is likely that there will be more, but that is all part of how these particular girls are. Phew.

Next news.

Daughter is engaged!

This is lovely, lovely news. He’s a terrific fellow and we are happy to have him join our family. He fits right in. It is a happy year ahead!

More news.

I have had my first academic, peer reviewed paper accepted for publication with The International Journal of Literary Humanities. This is deeply meaningful to me. I long to add my little bit to the collect thinking around poetry, trauma, confessional poetry, and literary trauma theory. Once it is published then it is available for other researchers to cite. Silly as it may seem, this is something I have wanted to do for a while now.

Just in the nick of time, too. I was ready to quite academic writing once and for all. Publishing is just hard work.

Next news.

I start my new job soon and am in the thick of planning. I am excited to take on this new challenge and keen to be ready for what is coming. I am motivated to deliver the best English program I can, continually seeking to improve my own practice and this is a terrific opportunity to stretch my wings.

Last news.

I’m slowing down. I’m not sure for how long as I still have some commitments that I am looking forward to fulfilling. In particular, I am running a poetry and trauma workshop at the Gippsland Writer’s Festival in April 2024. These workshops are powerful moments of self-discovery that I enjoy facilitating. Aside from that and an article I have coming out soon in the English teachers journal, Idiom, about the importance of reading out loud to adolescents, it is the simple life for me. No doubt I will be back from time to time. I do like our chats.

I leave you with my favourite place in Tasmania—the Buttongrass moorlands in the Cradle Mountain—Lake St Clair National Park. It is this wild place where the wind that lifts from Antartica blows west across the ocean, across the west coast of Tassie, momentarily chilling your cheeks before continuing on. It is a wilderness like none other, held together by hardy clumps of Buttongrass offering delicate flowers for admiration to anyone fortunate enough to be walking by.