2014 – my year.

 Personally, it’s been a pretty average year for me,

But artistically – It’s been an awesome year

… I’m not sure if that means I’ve come out on top or not … who knows.

Awards

I won some awards for The Long Weekend in Alice Springs … now I can refer to myself as a “multi-award-winning-graphic-novelist” … isn’t that rad.

• ComicOz Award for Best Australian Original Comic Book for 2013
• But even more important to me was this one – 2014 Chief Minister’s NT Read Non Fiction Book Award. It’s rad to have won this award in the NT, where the story of The Long Weekend belongs. In fact – there was tonnes of Central Australian stories up in Darwin nominated at the book awards – which is awesome for the Centralian region.

Exhibitions

I had 2 exhibitions which is pretty alright I reckon!

• Sleuth: The Delegation – at Sawtooth ARI in Launceston in April
• The Long Weekend in Alice Springs at the Top Gallery at the Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart.

Publications

I managed to get 2 different Sleuth pieces into literary magazines this year which is exciting, as well as some other stuff.

• Sleuth: OMG – published in Island #137 in June
• Sleuth: The Transcontinental Distress was published in Meanjin in September.
• Oi Oi Oi! First 9 pages of The Long Weekend was reprinted in this.
• Fluid Prejudice – some other pages from The Long Weekend was contained in this wonderful Aussie History Comics anthology

I’ve also been working on a series of 20 kids books in the3 Yankunytjatjara language from South Australia – these will be released in early 2015 (if all goes according to plan).

ALSO – I continued organising and publishing the Down There comics series through San Kessto Publications – Tom OHern and Tricky Walsh both had releases of really awesome Tasmanian comics through that series – one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever been involved in!

Writing

Something I’ve not done for a while.

• Wrote for the Meanjin website in January
• Wrote for the Island Website in May – review of Fluid Prejudice
• Wrote for Island Magazine in June – Island #137 – on the making of The Long Weekend in Alice Springs.

Festivals

Managed to be at a number of Festivals during the year for writing, comics and music … here’s a list!

• MONA FOMA, Hobart – played manic guitar as part of the Hobart Improv Collective
• NT Writers Festival – Word Storm – Darwin: spoke on panels, presented my graphic novel, hung out and stuff (won an award)
• Emerging Writers Festival, Melbourne – spoke on a panel
• Her Majesty’s Favourite Really Great Graphical Festival – I was the Festivale Directeur Flamboyante of the first Comics/Illustrators/Zines festival in Tasmania in June.
• Helsinki Comics Festival, Finland – international comics festival that I had a table at – and met lots of fine folks.

Music …

Concert-wise it’s been a quiet year by my normal standards with only about 7 or so performances … but I did manage to fit in a few gigs here and there, played in Helsinki twice as well which is rad.

Recordings – I did have two recordings released through two channels.

• “Feels” was commissioned and played on Ears Have Ears show on FBi radio in Sydney in September, it can be listened on their Soundcloud site for free.
• “The Waterhole” was a track that was released on the Hobart Experimental Noise compilation Convergence, curated by Matt Warren and Julian Teakle, which can be bought/downloaded from Rough Skies Records.

So all up – It’s been a pretty good year!!

2015 is already shaping up quite well –

• 2 more exhibitions lining up – One in Hobart! One in Canberra!
• A longer comic piece being finished for August or thereabouts
• Some more festivals
• Knuckling down on some more graphic novels
• Some weeklong workshops
• Chris Downes and I performing The Shipwright and the Banshee in Melbourne
• Her Majesty’s 2^nd Favourite Really Great Graphical Festival, in June
• More Down There comics – I have soooooo many Taswegians lined up making comics it’s just not funny … not funny at all!!!
• Who knows what else!!!

Tags: artist, Australian, awards, graphic novel, Santospirito, Tasmania, The long weekend in Alice Springs, writer