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 2nd 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!!!
Joshua Santospirito Art 