April 2023 in Review
April was a huge month and May is set to be even bigger!
It was my first month diving back into full-time freelancing, I had some fabulous events to attend, some excellent books to read, and plenty going on.
Work
This semester I am back to freelancing and with it I’ve had photography sessions, interviews, mentorships and I’ve delved back into manuscripts. I’m reading a wonderful middle-grade fantasy at the moment and next up I’ll be working on a dark and creepy speculative fiction.
I’m also back to teaching at Curtin University, although this semester I’m mostly online. I’ve also started working part-time with the wonderful people at AWESOME Arts as their marketing coordinator for the next few months.
I also ran two workshops in April: Self-Assess Your Manuscript at the Centre for Stories and Build Your Author Brand at KSP Writers Centres.
The wonderful group who came to my Build Your Author Brand Workshop at KSP Writers Centre.
It’s been wonderful watching these budding authors develop their social media presence in the past few weeks. Dare I say, some of them even look like they might be having a little bit of fun with it!
I was also on a podcast this month!
The lovely Joanne Morrell invited me to speak on her amazing podcast The Hybrid Author about structural editing and self-editing. Joanne was so lovely and kind and I had a great time getting to discuss my job.
You can listen to it at The Hybrid Author Podcast website or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
In other industry news, I attended the Writing WA AGM as the Editors WA representative and it was awesome to see this fabulous organisation go from strength to strength. With a whole new team and lots of incoming Board members, many of whom I know personally and know will drive the organisation in a fabulous direction, all I can say is that I’m very excited for the WA writing and publishing industry at the moment.
Reading
I read two absolutely fabulous books in April, both of which were everything I could have hoped for. Reading them back to back was just the boost I needed.
The first was Garth Nix’s follow-up to his New York Times bestseller The Left-Handed Booksellers of London which I absolutely adored and couldn’t wait to get my hands on this sequel: The Sinister Booksellers of Bath. You can read my full review for The AU Review but here’s a sneak peek of my thoughts:
“The Sinister Booksellers of Bath is a worthy sequel, embarking on an entirely new adventure while still holding fast to the vibrancy of its predecessor. It is fast-paced, fun-loving and eccentric despite being a story centered around murder and underhanded dealings. It is a love letter to the literary world and a book for any reader who has ever wished they could live inside the worlds of their books.”
Next on the reading list was a book that’s taken TikTok by storm and boosted the genre of ‘cosy fantasy’ to new pop culture horizons: Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.
To say I enjoyed this book is an understatement. I loved it. It was just what I needed to read right now.
This book felt like a warm hug. It felt like being wrapped up in the cosiest and most comfortable place you could imagine. Baldree’s writing is so easy to lose yourself in. I could smell the coffee and baking cinnamon, and I could hear the general chatter and clatter of a coffee shop as I was reading.
I have never read a book that has left me feeling so calm and contented.
Leisure
With all the work stuff going on, you could be forgiven for thinking that I had no other life, but April was a very busy social period for me as I caught up with lots of people who had patiently waited for my gig with Perth Festival to finish, and celebrated milestones and birthdays for friends and family.
It was my nephew’s 1st birthday which was a fun and long affair, and it was also my brother’s birthday. We finally cashed in on my sister-in-law’s birthday gift and went to see the Moulin Rouge stage show which was fabulous! And Fred and I also went to see the Fever Candlelight Concert in tribute to Joe Hisaishi, the Japanese composer of pretty much all of my favourite Studio Ghibli films - I absolutely adore his music!
In gaming and anime news, I spent April relaxing to the simulator game Two Point Campus which has been a great way for me to unwind. I also lamented the season finales for Trigun Stampede and My Hero Academia.
The Trigun reboot has been hugely enjoyable for me, even as a huge fan of the original series (which I binged again shortly before the new series came out). I love what they’ve done with the characters, how they’ve taken the big twist of the original series and brought it up front so that there’s something new and interesting for old fans.
My Hero Academia took a darker turn this season and watching Deku struggle with the responsibility of what he has to do was heart-wrenching. There were some incredible moments in this season with some character arcs coming full circle. Bakugo finally confronting Deku and apologising for his behaviour was a huge moment and I wished I could reach through the screen and hug them both!
And one last event was a trip to the WA Museum Boola Bardip to see the Alice in Wonderland exhibit with my new work colleagues. I did a quick little TikTok about it which you can watch if you’re curious what it looked like.
And that was April.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking around and thanks for caring enough about what I get up to on a monthly basis to read this whole post!
Here’s some puppy spam to brighten your day. Tilly has been super cuddly as the weather has grown colder and she currently loves to cuddle up in the beanbags of our library with me at night while I read.
If I don’t speak to you beforehand, I’ll catch you next month for the next update.
