And I have done nothing at all Christmassy, which is fine. But don’t worry, I won’t do anything political either. Anyway, the politics in so many places is not anything with which I want to sully this blogpost. For the related nitty-gritty, just check out my twit-feed.
It’s been a year of ups and downs health-wise and fortunately much has been resolved in that area. I have learned that a double day of oats, as porridge and soup, with a touch of turmeric, can work wonders on my insides and out.
On the writing front, I’ve been trying my hand at writing a Krimi in German- yes, it is a mite politically motivated, and it’s also a bit dystopian, but Zeitgeist oblige. So, In May I should hear whether or not I’m off to a hotel in Saint Moritz for a week in the autumn to hopefully finish the work and correct my der-die-das.
I also seem to have found a place where I’m comfortable, and that is in the folds of the Bath flash fiction Ad hoc and flash fiction festival events, which aren’t really in Bath, but in Bristol.
Delighted I am to have a small dream sequence from a 2019 festival workshop run by Jude Higgins appear in the third festival anthology (I also have a piece in that of the first festival, was unable to attend the second, but am determined to be back in Bristol next June for the fourth Flash Fiction Festival going so strong.
And look! My twit-avatar has spied a story of mine that I am very attached to in the latest Bath Flash Fiction anthology. A cow spied by a cow on the other side of the world! The spyglass cow, appropriately lives in the geographical underbelly of Australia at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in Western Australia. Don’t mention the fires!
Yes! I have procured tickets to see Michael Niavarani in conversation with John Cleese at Vienna’s Globe Theatre in May 2020 – a concession to Christmas giftgiving. And another is to see and hear Margaret Atwood in Sydney. Yes. The city of the smoke, but I have the mask. No, I won’t go there.
I have submitted stories to a series of paying and non-paying competitions and am being very selective in my no-longer a spring chicken age, but no Jane Fonda either, more’s the pity. Most results are expected around May.
May will be a busy month when I hope to take the night train to Geneva for the Geneva Writers’ Conference, and a week later – or was that earlier? Better check – to the Stockholm Writers’ Festival, winding up end June with the 4th Flash Fiction Festival in Bristol.
There may also be some other exciting writerly news, but we’re not there yet.
So, on that note of optimism and hope, may I wish you all the very best for the Season, and may 2020 be a year of more common sense and empathy. Onwards!
