What a busy year for poetry! I could not have done it without the Queensland Writers Fellowship from the QLAs, which gave me space and time to work. Thanks to these funds, my next manuscript is just about done. A little trip to Varuna at the start of 2018 should polish it off! Watch this space. 😏🚀💫

But it’s also been the trash-fire year in which I lost my Dad, which has been a strange and lonely time. (Though I’d say that organising a funeral while writing/rehearsing a spoken word show is probably the most uncanny feat my stress hormones have ever performed.) Thank you to the loved ones who’ve supported Mum and me. I’ve played a lot of Stardew Valley in the months since.

Here is this year’s haul of printed poems. I hit some milestones that I’m proud of, but wish I could tell Dad about. So it goes. Thank you to the lovely editors, poets and readers who keep these journals humming along:

• “Blueprint No. 6: Rosemount Street“, Red Room Poetry
• “Peripheral Drift“, Overland
• “Lepidopera“, Rabbit: Belonging
• “Bathers”, Gallery of Modern Art (temporary installation) and Australian Poetry Journal v. 8.2
• “Chivalry’s Not Dead (It’s Just Been Criminalised)”, Cordite: TRANSQUEER
• “Reality on Demand”, Cordite/Queensland Poetry Festival: Val Vallis Awards
• Three poems, Ibis House
• “The Tophouse”, Meanjin
• “Distractions at Rental Inspections”, Concrete Queers
• “Census Night”, Rabbit
• “Surigao del Sur”, Woolf Pack

Congratulations to Emily O’Grady and Ella Jeffery on the continued success of Stilts this year. Check out Issue 3, which recently launched. And hearty congratulations to Bec Jessen and Anna Jacobson on their contracts for upcoming poetry collections with UQP. Warm feelings to Rebecca Cheers and Talia Enright as they shut up shop on Woolf Pack.

Wishing you a breezy festive season in gentle company. Be kind to retail and hospo folks! Here’s hoping 2019 has lots of good stuff in store.