Revisiting old classics
Still the Palestinian genocide unfolds before our eyes. Massacre after atrocity after horror. It’s hard to sleep at night. It’s hard to work. I am proud of my friends and colleagues who are doing all they can to bring the injustices to light and to keep it in the forefront of the public conscience – and who won’t let anyone minimise what is happening, or to sanitise it or excuse it or deny it. I saw a tile on instagram that said, We Owe Gaza Endurance, and we do.
RESEARCH
I began my (re)reading with This All Come Back Now, the anthology of blackfella spec fic I edited in 2022. This MURFIR project is really an extension and a deepening and widening of my work on this anthology, so it made the most sense to start here. It was lovely to read all these stories again – and I have already read them countless times in editing and curating the anthology. Reading in this case for genre markers, I made notes on each story using my genre notes template and this helped me get into the swing of close reading again, while reading for genre examples.
It was such a pleasure to work on this anthology a few years back, and revisiting the stories was the perfect start to my mammoth task of reading everything in the database – which is currently at 100 texts (and counting)! I will get through it once the book promo stuff has died down a little.
I wish I had read more spec fic over February, but my time was taken up by my own book promo and other reading. Not that I’m complaining!
PUBLICATIONS
Book: ‘Always Will Be : stories of Goori sovereignty from the futures of the Tweed‘
My book is officially out in the world as of the 27th of February. I’ve had some lovely reviews come in, which UQP are keeping track of on their web page for the book, and I’m told pre-sales did well and have all been sent out. I was able to send and give copies to people who were part of this book, and to family too of course. It’s been cool watching my friends and community get excited for me.
TALKS
I did a fair bit of promo in the form of radio and print interviews, and podcasts and features. Some of these are out and some are scheduled for March. UQP are also kindly collating these on the book’s web page too.
CULTURE
Reading: the idea of extra reading this month is laughable, because the truth is I am still reading for the NSW Premiers Literary Prize. While my panel, the Indigenous Writers panel, has read all our books and deliberated and decided, as the panel chair I now also have to read for Book of the Year and for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. So I have another few months of solid reading ahead! It’s actually been fun and interesting to read outside my usual wheelhouse of Indigenous and/or spec fic work, and see what other writers are doing in the world.
I also read the beautiful poetry anthology Woven, edited by Anne-Marie Te Whiu, from Red Room Poetry. I have a review of it forthcoming and will post it when it’s out.
As always – free Palestine!
Mykaela
Friday the 8th of March, 2024
Mykaela Saunders 