Goodbye and good riddance 2024!

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2024 publicationsThis past year has had a lot of ups and downs. On a personal level, it was a particularly difficult year dominated by the death of my mum after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. So I can’t say that I’m disappointed to see the end of 2024.

On a professionally level, it was a slow year for publications but a busy year for speaking.

I had two picture books published. A Doctor Who spinoff, Down in the London Underground, based around the classic Who story “The Web of Fear”. It’s one of my favourite old Doctor Who stories, so it was a real hoot to write about rampaging robot Yeti in the London Underground. The second book I can’t tell you about as it was a ghost-writing job. Even though I collaborated on its writing, my name doesn’t appear anywhere on it.

I had three short stories appear in print. “My Last Duke”, based on Robert Browning’s classic poem “My Last Duchess”, was published in Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead, an anthology from Atlin Merrick and Improbable Press. “Ghost Ship”, a middle grade horror/sci-fi mash-up, appeared in Borderland: Riding the Slipstream, an anthology from Paul Collins and Ford Street Publishing. And finally there was a piece of micro-fiction, “Pulse”, which was published in The Victorian Writer magazine.

ADDENDUM
9 Jan — Whoops! I completely forgot to mention that I also had two non-fiction school readers published by Cengage Learning… Soccer Stars and Things That Live On You.

I also wrote a lot of other stuff that won’t see publication until 2025/26.

‘Twas a big speaking year! I was guest speaker at five major festivals — StoryArts Festival Ipswich, Bendigo Writers Festival, Write Around the Murray, Once Upon a Festival and the Inspired Readers Festival. I never tire of going to festivals. They are always so much fun. Then, of course, there were all the schools.

The stats…

  • Schools: 36 (2 virtual)
  • Libraries: 2
  • Festivals: 5
  • Other virtual events: 3

That’s 126 individual sessions (including 6 virtual sessions).

2024 was also the 10th Anniversary of my You Choose series of interactive books. So it was the perfect time to announce a new addition to the series… YOU CHOOSE MEGA: PREHISTORIC PERIL. The draft is currently with my editor at Penguin Random House. I’ve still got more work to do on it, but it’s scheduled for publication in August this year.

The 10th Anniversary was also a good excuse for me to make a couple of YouTube vids…

And now… time to get on with 2025!