New Year update

Kia ora friends and fam,

2024 was an extremely challenging year and I am hopeful that 2025 will be less complicated and more gentle. I learned an immense amount last year and wrote a lot. It was a hard but good year, and finally now, a new one!

I have returned to sharing work on my website. I’ve been building up a library of posts since about June, under the heading ‘Field Notes’. I’ve shared essay excerpts, film proofs, artist statements and adventure notes. You can explore posts here. I recommend starting with an essay excerpt I shared a month or two back called Tsunami Dream, EVACs and Election Tallies.

I’m currently working on an essay about the Haenyeo (Jeju’s female divers), the year I spent living in Korea, and diving for kina as part of the conservation work led by Te Kohuroa Rewilding Initiative at Te Kohuroa Matheson Bay in Leigh. TKRI hired me in October as their Assistant Project Coordinator. (I’m still gardening also). Part of our restoration mahi / work is to remove the overabundance of kina / sea urchin around the island in the photograph below, which will support the kelp to grow back and help bring the ecosystem back into balance. We are about halfway through the pilot and hope to receive funding to continue the project over the next two years.

I’m also piecing together chapters / essays for a nonfiction book and dream-speaking with my novel.

I also have a couple of announcements to share!

One of my mangrove photographs was included in the photobook ‘whispering bird song’ published by Women In Photography NZ + AU and The Handmade Darkroom in August of 2024. The book itself is handmade, printed, guillotined, collated, and stapled by volunteers in Wellington. You can read more about this work here.

My short non-fiction piece ‘Date Night’ was selected for the OWL anthology Hoot!: Words from the Otepoti Writer’s Lab Community and published by Rivulet Press in December of 2024. You can read it here.

My short non-fiction piece ‘Private Acts’ was selected for publication in the anthology Poto! / Short forthcoming in 2025 by Massey University Press. ‘Poto’ is maori for ‘short’; each piece will be published in English and Te Reo Maori. I will make this piece available once the publication is out.

And finally, my essay ‘Choosing Sides’ was selected for publication in the anthology Strong Words 4. I’m really proud of this essay as it formed the beginning of a larger work of nonfiction I am currently at work on. I’m very excited to see it in print alongside other great essays by NZ voices.

I applied for six publications in 2024 and was accepted into four of them. These odds kept me going through this difficult year and have me eager to keep the momentum up this year. I have several essays in the works which I plan to share excerpts of in the next few months.

I hope that this newsletter finds each of you surrounded by some kind of beauty and in the company of friends and family (and animals if you have them). Logan and I accidentally welcomed several more birds into our family this year! We have 40-50 chickens and six adopted baby ducklings. Our two dogs as well.

We’re enjoying summer right now. The wind is up so we haven’t been out in our little boat or the kayaks but we’ve been snorkelling, swimming, reading, writing and relaxing. This Sunday my sister (from Indiana) and my mom (from Dunedin) arrive for a week. It will be so nice to be together!

I wish everyone a slow, grounded start to the year. Much love and thanks for reading ox