because nice things happen too

2014 was a hell of a year, as well as having breast cancer for the second time and three surgeries (spaced over the year), my father-in-law died extremely painfully and very sadly – and, at the same time as these horrible things, Fun Palaces, the biggest thing I’ve ever made (not alone, obviously!) took off and grew to become far more astonishing and glorious and hopeful than we could ever have dreamed, I wrote a teeny tiny opera (libretto) for Tete a Tete (and have now been asked to write a slightly larger one, yay), and wrote a women-in-science play commissioned for her company, Theree Legged Theatre, by the gorgeous Lucy Pitman-Wallace.
Another good thing that happened is that a Twitter conversation (use Twitter for good, my friends! it can be done!) led to the splendid Salt Publishing collecting and publishing my short stories Everything is Moving, Everything is Joined.
And today I heard that the anthology is longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.
Having been twice longlisted for the Orange Prize, among a bunch of other long and short listings, I’m well aware that being longlisted is not the same as being shortlisted, and being shortlisted is definitely not the same as making the tearful speech.
But it’s very lovely regardless.

The main reason I’m sharing it is that we ALL have rubbish years. Sometimes we have rubbish decades. And, if we’re lucky, there are gifts to be found in those rubbish times as well. I’m now awaiting a date for my 4th (and final – woop!) surgery, I’m in less in pain than I’ve been in over a year, and this nice thing happened today.
I hope, whatever tough things are going on for you, that some nice things can happen today for you too.
(Even if it’s only that the rain is good for the trees.)

Here’s the gorgeous cover Salt gave my collection.