What’s in store for 2023? Hopefully lots of great things! We wave goodbye to another year and in our hearts many of us hope in some ways for change. One year finishes and as the next arrives, and we are full of expectations that things may be different, or if we are struggling, different and better.
Will this next year deliver what we seek? What I’ve come to realise is that this is largely up to us.
Regardless of what we see as being ahead, here’s hoping your 2023 is filled with lots of good things and good feelings.

Even though 2022 had a considerable amount of health challenges for me (don’t worry, working through them!), it was a busy and successful year. The absolute highlight came in September when I was awarded the Horror Writers Association Rock Wood Memorial Non-Fiction Scholarship for a history project on Australian horror. It is a competitive international award, and I was truly honoured to receive it.

2022 was also my most published writing year.

In review

Publications

‘A Stranger with my Face’, Nightmare Fuel Magazine, Dec 2022 **read online
‘Be Gone’, Nightmare Fuel Magazine, Nov 2022 **read online
‘Phone Calls’, Our Pandemic, Writers Workout, reprint,  Oct 2022
‘Subscribed’, Never Cheat a Witch, Wolfsinger Publishing, Oct 2022
‘The Dreams that Shape Us’, Brink Issue #4, Oct 2022
‘A Shadow in this Red Rock’, From the Waste Land, PS Publishing, Oct 2022
‘Lola’, Analogue #1, Paul Dunne and Carolyn Swindell, July 2022
‘End of the Line‘, Dark Recesses Press Webzine, 10 March 2022 **read online 
‘Talking to the Horror Tree as it turns 10’, Horror Oasis, Feb 2022 **read online
‘Nothing To Contest’, Pendulum Papers, Feb 2022 **read online

In 2022, I also worked on a bunch of fabulous editing projects, one being Cornish College’s A Celebration of Courage. This book was a compilation of the College’s short 10-year history, and an acknowledgement of its tumultuous journey. The book was created to showcase and celebrate what had been achieved in a short time and consisted of images and reflections from parents that represented the College’s formation and history.

The College began as a campus of St Leonards before it came into its own right, only after it faced closure in 2012. Parents, staff and students banded together to find a new benefactor, which, after a series of trials and tribulations, they eventually did with the Uniting Church. Cornish is now a thriving and vibrant College, and the 10-year anniversary commemoration is truly the celebration of the courage it took to keep it going.

Other editing work consisted of health and wellness books, New Age card sets, fiction and memoir – quite the variety this year!

What’s coming up

As far as future projects go, I’m hoping for lots of publications (or at least successful pitches to publishers) in 2023. I am currently working on the horror history project which is quite detailed and involves a lot of interviews. The aspect of horror writing history I am looking at is something that has not been explored and I’m having to do a lot of investigation – which is just how I like things with my non-fiction projects!

Next in line are a few secret, smaller projects. These are something completely different for me and are in the line of inspirational message cards. Lastly, is another cricket history book. Something I’ve wanted to write ever since I finished Bowl the Maidens Over. This one will be set around Sydney and will focus on equality in sport, and the attempts that were made to get there.

In between, there are always loads of short stories to work on, and I have a few other non-fiction topics to explore. Never a dull moment here.

Once again, good wishes to you for 2023.

Here are a few covers and story images from my publications this year: