Ravenari

(Disclaimer: This discusses views that work for ME, and is not meant to be proscriptive to how other people deal with their paths on this journey at all. If you do it differently, that's awesome. *thumbs up*) I was talking to my therapist Thursday about how weird it is to watch people getting so angry at my cancer. Tell me to fight it. To battle it. Crying 'fuck cancer.' Scribbling their thoughts onto the whiteboard they think is me, when none of those things are my philosophy at all... Here's my perspective: If you treat the body as a battlefield, you will lose, even when you win. It's not a coincidence that people get so many war-based me

This year was meant to be my Big Year for Writing. And, in a lot of ways, it has been! But there have been unexpected bouts of lag on a lot of my projects, because on February 14th I was diagnosed with two very rare tumours called paragangliomas, in very shitty places in my neck, near the brain, attached to arteries, near and/or on significant cranial nerves (9-12). Some back story: I have a metabolic cancer disease that is a 1/1,000,000 condition called 'Hereditary PGL PCC' or just 'the SDHD Gene Fault.' You know you're doing well when your disease has no common name. I had a life-threatening tumour when I was 18, had it removed, my arteries

Things have been pretty exciting though, lately. Firstly, I've been writing a great deal. However, that work is happening under another name, and so that's basically like my secret double life that's been happening in the background. I'm not really taking personal commissions still. HOWEVER, I am considering commercial commissions on a case by case basis, especially book covers and book illustrations. I recently was nominated for a Tin Duck award for Best WA Professional Artwork for the cover of Prickle Moon by the wonderful Juliet Marillier. And I've been nominated for a DITMAR award for best artwork in the Australian SF Awards again for