I tried really hard to make a good pun on “March Hare”, but I failed. I’m so sorry.

It’s been a quiet start to the year. I moved house, fell in love with the neighbour’s cat (Sable, pictured), and have spent a lot of time re-scaping my fish tank.

I received happy news yesterday: Salt and Bone has been commended in the FAW Anne Elder Awards. So chuffed! I look forward to reading the winner’s work. (Last year it was Vanessa Page’s excellent Confessional Box.)

I’ve had the great pleasure of spending time with Bronwyn Lea, my Australian ArtStart mentor for the year. Bronwyn is so sharp, and so lovely; it’s wonderful to have her brain turned towards my poems.

It’s high time I booked tickets for my European adventure. A week or so ago, I put two and two together and realised that the Roxane Gay giving a nonfic/personal-essay course at the Black Forest Writing Seminars, where I’ll be studying poetry, was the one and only Bad Feminist Roxane Gay. I rushed to sign up! What followed was basically credit-card kink; my wallet’s sore from the exercise, but both my wallet and I are prettty satisfied. I can’t wait to learn everything I can from Roxane.

I was so, so sad to hear of Terry Pratchett’s final meeting with Death yesterday, and will be blogging my goodbyes this week after it’s sunk in better.

Zenobia x