Twelve fave reads of 2024 and 5 highlights of my year!

Well hello, lovely,

Here we are—the end of the year. I hope you are powering through and looking forward to a little holiday in the coming months. Catch ups with friends and family, maybe lazing by the pool or on the beach. Too much chocolate, not enough salad. Whatever floats your boat, I hope you’ve scheduled it in as your number one priority for the summer.

My son has school camp all of next week and I am planning (hoping!) to finish this round of edits on the WIP while he is away and I don’t have to put dinner on the table every night. I have 56 pages to go. If I can get this done, it means I can put the manuscript away until the new year before doing one big major read through and sending it off to my publisher. Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, I’ve collated my favourite reads of the year and pulled together my annual Success Audit. I haven’t included any reading recommendations in this issue because I’ve run out of steam. But I promise I’ll have plenty to share when we kick off the new year.

Let’s go!

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2023’s Divine Dozen Reads

By definition, these are the stories that have stayed with me after the last page is turned. Months later, I find my thoughts returning to these stories. To me, that is the mark of a great book. Not the hype, not the sales figures, not the name of the author but stories that have heart and dig into the human condition — funny, dark or thoughtful. I really tried to limit this to ten but, well, I just couldn’t. And I didn’t include the debut books I reviewed in New Voices Down Under because every debut author deserves a shout out. No favourites there!

Consider these my summer reading recommendations, if you haven’t already got to these books. By the way, these are in no particular order.

From the top left, here are the full titles:

A Town Called Treachery by Mitch Jennings

Appreciation by Liam Pieper

Cherrywood by Jock Serong

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

If You Go by Alice Robinson

Rapture by Emily Maguire

The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

The Thinning by Inga Simpson

Graft by Maggie Mackellar

Thunderhead by Miranda Darling

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

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2024 Success Audit

I admit, when I get to this time of year, I’m thinking less about my successes but how exhausted I am as I focus on crawling over the 2024 finish line! 2024 has been a year of enormous change for me but we need that pain or tension to force us to grow and evolve, don’t we? And I can see good stuff on my horizon, like a new book, a TV series and a new way of being. As always, I truly believe it is important to practice gratitude as a way of acknowledging that you have done some good in the world — be it the big wide world or the microcosm that is your community and family and, hopefully, oneself. Change is critical too. It’s never too late and it is a reminder that it is part of being human. All that said, it’s time to take stock. Let’s see how I go.

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1.       Reading through last year’s Success Audit, I now laugh that I so optimistically thought my current Work In Progress would be finished by now. It’s close but not quite there. I have a hard-ish deadline now of 28 February to hand it into my publisher. And a tentative publication date of July 2026. It sounds like a long way off but, believe me, in the publishing world, it ain’t.

2.       On a similar note, I already know what my next book is about and I’m super excited about it. I’ve already started doing a tiny bit of research. It’s set around the end of the 1950s and the dawning of the 1960s. So I need to get my head around the cultural and social mores of those times. I’m itching to start putting words on the page but that is a 2025 project.

3.       There’s been progress on the adaption of The Dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison for a six-part TV series. I can’t say anything as yet but it’s beginning to take shape. I hope by my next newsletter in February 2025, I can be less coy.

4.       I am grateful for the live events I was invited to in 2024. I went to Goulburn Mulwaree library (three times!) to chat with Wendy Harmer about her memoir, Lies My Mirror Told Me, BookFest to interview Inga Simpson about her new novel, The Thinning and last Thursday I chatted with Emily Maguire about Rapture. Plus sharing the stage at South Coast Writers Centre and Berry Writers Festival. Events are the best fun, from catching up with author mates, meeting readers and sharing ideas. Such an honour every time.

5.       Art classes. Not just because I can actually see improvement but the camaraderie. We started a Whats App group called Art Therapy…on Tour. It’s allowed us to share upcoming events and see who else wants to go. Meet up for coffee over the school holidays when there are no classes and generally build our own little community over shared interests. So far, a group of us went to see the Kate Winslet film, Lee. If you haven’t seen it yet, I urge you to go. Winslet fought so hard to make this film and thank goodness she did. Lee is magnificent. And, lucky us, the stage production of The Dictionary of Lost Words is coming to our neck of the woods next year and four of us are going.

Here is a little watercolour I did for a group exhibition called Hive (hence the shape) for our local Art Festival. I grew these flowers, and then I painted them.

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The end of the cup

Well, my friend, my cup is empty. Thank you so much for hanging out with me in 2024. I’ll be back in your inbox on 5 February. I have a mountain of things to do between now and then. No rest for the wicked! However, I hope you, on the other hand, have a lovely break over the summer so you have plenty of energy for an exciting 2025.

If you’ve had a rough year then I’m sending a huge hug your way. Supposedly, whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger but sometimes that is very hard to believe. Remember, you’re not alone and this too shall pass. Or, it bloody well better! Enough of this s*?* show already! Remember to be kind to yourself. Put on your own oxygen mask first and focus on what’s in front of you. You can only do so much in a day. And sometimes, just putting a meal on the table is the best you can do and that is OKAY!

I am going to take a break from socials over the summer, so I won’t see you until well into the new year. Let’s read lots of great books and be kind to ourselves.

Keep well,