Compulsory New Year's Eve Post

Creative Commons image. 

2014 has been a crazy year for me. I had to teach Year 8 history. I only made one story sale(thank heavens for the wonderful Sophie Masson). We had an author visit by Sherryl Clark and were offered one for this coming year by the new Stella Schools Program. I did a lot of reading for the Aurealis Awards and read a lot of slush for ASIM and published an issue of ASM myself, #60. Go buy it! 

 I seriously think whether I should take a break from promoting other people's books and concentrate on my own writing. But I can't not read, can I? 

And I am inspired by the wonderful Ambelin Kwaymullina, author of The Interrogation Of Ashala Wolf, whom I meet at Continuum, who also has a full time day job as a teacher and still manages to write amazing fiction. And paint. And handcraft. (Ambelin, by the way, is the one I have to thank for the Stella freebie.) If she can do it, so can I.

Ambelin did  a great interview on this blog in June. Do check it out.

I'm hoping that this coming year will be a good one. Even though we're having to jump through ever more hoops at work, I will only have small classes and once I get them organised I may be able to focus more on the writing and look after my students in the library.

So, have a great NYE - I'm meeting my nephew David and his daughters Dezzy and Rachel at the Astor Theatre for the very last Rocky Horror Picture Show before they are closed down so the owner can make a fortune selling it as apartments. I don't do midnight any more, not since Dad died, it depresses me too much, but Rocky Horror will be good. And no champers either - a half glass of fizzy wine and my head fuzzes up and I say stupid things. Anyway, with daylight saving, who can tell when it's midnight? :-)

So here's a December 31 meme for you.

On This Day

The usual lot of battles and horrible stuff, so I found some quirky items for you in Wikipedia.

1759 : Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum. And the world gets a new beer! Wonder if the lease price has gone up?

1853: A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England. Will have to check this out. What a way to spend New Year's Eve, eh? And typically Victorian era over-the-top.

1907: The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square). This has, as I needn't remind you, become a tradition. 

2009: Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur. This was a sad year's end for me, as my Dad had just passed away. I went to bed early and as there was a storm that night, I missed the lunar events, I'm afraid. But an interesting thing anyway.

Birthdays

Only two writers/editors I'm familiar with, so I've added actors I respect.

1937 – Anthony Hopkins, Welsh-American actor, director, and composer. Didn't know about the American. Time to read his bio.

1943 – Ben Kingsley, English actor

1945 – Connie Willis, American spec fic author and one of my favourites. If you love spec fic, do read The Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, all those time travel stories, and Passage, which was a great story about near-death-experiences taking the form of finding yourself on the Titanic.

1949 - Ellen Datlow, American anthologist and author. Does a lot of themed anthologies, including fairytales. Pity she only takes commissioned work... Sigh!  But her anthologies have given me a lot of reading pleasure over the years.

In today's news

 A lot of depressing stuff, but one item I liked, the discovery of the world's smallest species of goanna, at only about 23 cm in length, in the Kimberley. She's on display at the Museum of Western Australia and yes, she's alive, I checked. I hope they find her a better place to live and a mate to cheer her up.

Compulsory New Year’s Eve Post 2020

Public Domain

 So. Another compulsory New Year’s Eve Post! 

Here is one I did in 2014 https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/search?q=December+31). It has SF author Connie Willis(1945) and editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow(1946) among the birthdays. This year I will add Bob Shaw(1931), another SF author(Irish), whom I once heard speak at Aussiecon 2, the 1985 World Science Fiction Convention, where he was the after-dinner speaker at the banquet. I recall him remarking on how weird it felt to be somewhere where the Minister for the Arts had a fanzine.(Race Matthews, a member of early Melbourne SF fandom)

Another one to add is Susan Schwartz, an American fantasy novelist(1949). I haven’t read her work in ages, but I do have a couple of her books. 

I haven’t got around to reading anything by British fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie(1974), but it’s his birthday too, and I hear he is good.

So, who has had a good 2020? And who knew we would be spending most of this year in lockdown, panicking that the horrible virus would capture us, at this time last year? 

I’m not doing much this evening, due to family commitments, but who is, really? I am looking forward to the Dr Who New Year special, even if we are going to lose two of the three companions(I will be very upset if they die!)

Still. I have sold a short story this year, and a couple of articles. I have read a lot of good books. I’m rereading The Dark Is Rising and finishing other books. 

I was hoping to go to New Zealand for the World Science Fiction Convention. As you know from my earlier posts, that went virtual. And it worked. And it wasn’t the only one. I got to attend NASFIC and the World Fantasy Convention, because they were online. I would never have been able to go to either of those in a normal year. I hope that, having learned how to do virtual conventions, con organisers will consider inserting a virtual stream for people who can’t make it otherwise. 

Meanwhile, I got a lot of new books as part of the package and bought some more, and I learned some amazing things from writers, artists and scientists, some of whom I had never heard of. 

Many people used the first wave, anyway, to take up hobbies and learn something new. I wasn’t one of them. There just wasn’t time - again, due to family commitments. 

I have attended one online funeral, but not a victim of COVID. She was my dear friend Theresa De Gabriele, whom I met through SF fandom, but who ended up in a nursing home with early onset dementia. She passed away in a hospital not that long ago.

I have found myself appreciating things I used to take for granted, such as taking long walks, eating out, seeing friends, going to the cinema and the museum, going outside without a mask. We have been almost back to normal the last few weeks - almost. And now someone came back I from Sydney and infected others... Sigh!

I’m glad the year is so nearly over, but I’m optimistic enough to think 2021 will be better. 

So, happy New Year, my friends, and good reading!