Well, this is rather lovely news: BODIES OF MEN has been shortlisted for the 2020 ACT Book of the Year.

For three decades now, the ACT and surrounding region have provided me with such a creatively sustaining environment. I left Sydney at the age of 18 and never really returned, preferring to call Canberra home, which I did for twenty years. Even though to most people it’s only ever seen as the centre of Australia’s federal politics (to the frustration of those who live there), and perhaps as a relatively well-known ‘designed’ city, to me Canberra has been the place where I began exploring so many things – all that made me feel truly alive.

Literature swiftly became the core of that.

Ten years ago, I moved 80 kilometres up the road and across the border and Goulburn, in New south Wales, is where I live now. However, it’s becoming my habit to say that Goulburn is my hometown, Canberra is my home city, and the ACT region is where my creative community lives. So, it feels…special to have BODIES OF MEN being endorsed by my peers in the ‘hood.

Nice also knowing my funny little war novel still has a bit of puff.

As ever, gratitude to Gaby Naher of Left Bank Literary, my publisher Robert Watkins, and Hachette Australia. Thanks also to artsACT, which administers the award – it mustn’t have been easy when the process got, well, plagued.

All the love in the world to everyone who has engaged with the novel.

That’s where it lives now: in the minds of readers.

Onwards.