August 2023 in Review

August was a big month for reading and books among a very busy month of finishing up work with the incredible AWESOME Festival. Here’s what’s been taking up my very minimal spare time…

Work

The biggest update with work was the handover of my part-time role as Marketing Coordinator for AWESOME Festival to their new full-time Marketing Manager Kayla MacGillivray. Leaving the festival is bittersweet since it was such a wonderful place to work and the program is so wonderful and important. It’s also strange to leave a festival organisation less than one month out from the event itself. But with the second semester of teaching back up and running and a new full-time staff member now on board, it was time for me to bow out.

The fabulous people over at Writing WA hosted me to present an in-person workshop on Social Media at the State Library of WA on Thursday 31st August.

It was great to get a chance to talk to a range of new authors and give them the confidence to go forward and start to build their online profiles.

If you missed the workshop and would like to come along to another, we’re holding an online version of the workshop on October 19th at 6pm AWST. You can book tickets here.

It was exciting to attend Laurie Steed’s book launch of his highly anticipated memoir Love, Dad on Thursday 17th August.

Laurie is a powerhouse of the WA literary scene, supporting so many authors and organisations with his positivity and enthusiasm, and this was reflected in the huge turnout of people who came to celebrate the launch of his book.

Let’s face it, a book launch is barely work, other than the huge number of colleagues that I got to catch up with. But I wanted to congratulate Laurie right up front of this post!

Reading

Midway through August, I developed a new reading challenge for myself to help kickstart my slow reading pace. So let’s start this section with my new TBR Jar.

If you’ve never heard of a TBR Jar, the idea is to put the names of books you want to read onto a slip of paper and into a jar and then pull them at random to read.

However, my TBR Jar comes with some extra rules.

I usually pull my new read on a Sunday. I have until the following weekend to pick up the book again otherwise I must reshelve or discard the book. I don’t have to finish the book within the week, but I do have to read at least once on the weekend and once during the week.

I have a habit of sitting on books I’m not enjoying for too long before I finally DNF them. The idea of this new rule is two-fold: to help me get through some of the many books on my shelf that I am excited to read, while also increasing the number of books I read. When you work as an editor, it can be hard to read for leisure, but it’s important for me to continue doing so - both for my own mental health and for my professional development. Understanding what is being published and the techniques writers use to create what would be considered good writing is all part of being a good editor. So far the new jar and rule is going well. So here’s what it helped me get through in August.

First up was the highly anticipated sequel to Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson - The Shadow Cabinet.

As with the first book in the trilogy, this book starts gently, gradually increasing in pace and continuing with the revelations and shocks right until the very last page.

I loved this book. I literally squealed out loud several times, and the text messages between me and my friend while reading it largely consisted “Oh my god!” and “Did that really just happen?” Highly, highly recommend this one.

I had heard very little about The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah although I had seen it everywhere so I was super excited to draw this one from the TBR jar.

This book completely captivated me and I couldn’t put it down. Drawing on the lore of the One Thousand and One Nights, Abdullah weaves an incredible tale in a world of magic, secrets and betrayal. I am dying for the sequel to this book now.

As we do each year, Emily Paulla and I took to the annual Save the Children Book Sale at UWA in August and as usual I picked up far too many books.

Including some recommendations from those standing around me, a nostalgia-driven need for the Artemis Fowl series, some books I’ve eyed off for ages, as well as some unexpected new finds, I left with this very respectable stash of books.

What can I say, if you tell me it’s for charity I lose what little restraint I have.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that I joined the hoards of people cramming into T2 to pick up one of their special edition book and tea sets.

I received notification from several friends when these went on sale (they know me so well!) and in the end decided to get the Sherlock Holmes set since it’s the only book I didn’t already have multiple copies of. The mug and cover design are simply stunning, the teas that came with it are delicious and I regret absolutely nothing!

Leisure

Look I’m going to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot of leisure time in August that wasn’t spent reading. It was a very busy month work-wise and if I wasn’t working or reading, the main thing I was doing was working on my garden and getting into some early spring-cleaning. My house became a bit of a mess over the winter months and it was time to start getting on top of things again. There is much more spring cleaning to come, and I promise way more interesting leisure activities for September.

But otherwise, that’s it for August and I’ll catch you at the end of September!