Thank You for 2016.

No, I´m not being sarcastic.

2016 brought good things:

• a fabulous online self-editing course with Debbie Alper and Emma Darwin;
• getting perhaps my last taste of the Geneva Writers’ Conference and hanging out with dear writing friends on that nipple of Switzerland;
• seeing DC before the Fall;
• catching up with dear friends in and near the Big Apple;
• a night in what felt like The Grand Budapest Hotel for sailors with bunk-bed and pristine shared bathroom;
• lovely young make-up staff helping me fulfil the Possum´s US shopping list;
• a visit by old uni friends from Oz;
• reading White Feathers and seeing the publication of The Gascony Writers´ Anthology 2016;
• hanging out with Kirstin Zhang in Edinburgh;
• attending the York Festival of Writing again and meeting up with participants in the online self-editing course;
• having my novel wip come third at Yeovil;
• getting super feedback from my agent to help me with my revisions;
• having two articles on the Austrian presidential elections solicited and published by Tuck Magazine;
• the ongoing support of my Schubis at the University of Vienna;
• the lovely messages of support on my blog and by email;
• the concern of dear friends that I´m concerning myself too much with politics;
• the good outweighing the bad now that I have taken the trouble to pull out all these nuggets, of which there are many more that I have not publicised.

I am heartened by the fact that those telling me to speak up far outweigh those telling me to shut up, although I know that the latter mean me well.

I am heartened by the fact that there are people out there trying to speak up in their own ways, as voices, as attempts to keep planting trees before there is no longer any soil to sustain them.

I am heartened by the fact that I have been able to speak to those not of my opinion and we have been able to listen to each other, even learn from each other, interestingly in private messages on Linky Ding.

All this gives me hope. Even Google Chrome does with its kitten extensions.

So with that feline gift let me wish a festive season that will help us reflect on how to make 2017 a better place.

Onwards!

Xmas cookies compliments of Tilly´s Table in Sydney.