2018: A New Hope

Here we are.  The obligatory year in review blog.

2018 will go down in history as an awful year, a year where the American, UK and Australian governments moved even further to the right, made even more unconscionable decisions, and were responsible for even more suffering and deaths.  

Everyone who survived the year will take something different away from it.  For me - and I suspect a lot of us - the most enduring aspect of 2018 was the way that we responded.  The clearest example of this is the March For Our Lives movement, the massive nationwide protests demanding gun reform in America, inspired by yet another mass school shooting.  Unfortunately Trump's government didn't listen, and made no effort to make guns harder to get, so by the time the schools were out for winter, 113 people (mostly students between 6 and seventeen years old) had been killed or injured in 93 incidents of gun violence in American schools.  The survivors of those shootings, the hundreds of thousands of kids who took to the street honestly give me hope for America's future - hope that I hadn't had for the last twenty years.  

On a local level, without the threat of being murdered in their classrooms bringing them together, it was great to see the Australian school children also protest against the Morrison's government's inaction on climate change.

The overall feeling is that people are getting more politically active, and that our schoolchildren are more politically aware than they have been over the last twenty years.  That gives me hope.  

And personally it's been a year of unexpectedly positive results as well.  I mean, I'm still writing this blog.  This is number 21 for the year.  I like that I have begun reviewing Australian Speculative Fiction books on my blog, and am supporting the Australian Spec Fic community in that way, so you can expect more of that next year. 

I received my first acceptance of a piece into an anthology this year - 'Flash Fiction Addiction' by Zombie Pirate Publishing - which shall be published next year.  And through my involvement in the Australian Speculative Fiction group I've helped put together a collection of speculative fiction short stories, 'Beginnings' which I reviewed here, and which features my first ever published story, 'The Teacup' which I am still excited about.

At the start of the year, I wasn't sure if I'd keep at this whole writing and blogging thing.  And it's fair to say I surpassed my expectations.  My first ever short story has been accepted (after first being rejected for another anthology), and the third short story I ever wrote has already been published.  I'm excited to see what 2019 brings!

Thanks to everyone who has read, commented and shared my blog posts.  I hope I've kept you somewhat entertained, and I hope all make it through the holiday period!  See you next year.