No more sleeps!

On launch day, audible sighs & vetting reviews

It’s today! No more sleeps! My new novel The Hummingbird Effect is officially out in Australia today and I’m excited, nervous, buzzing and FULL of adrenaline.

Katherine and I had the chance to catch up with Charlotte Wood about the new Belvoir stage adaptation of her novel The Weekend this week on the podcast and I took the opportunity to ask her to go back into Agony Aunt mode for us and give me her advice on keeping grounded during book publicity. She gave the excellent advice of using an ‘audible sigh’ to reduce anxiety which I’m now practicing - frequently and loudly - much to the amusement of my family.

One of the joys of being on social media (we gotta take the joys, right!) has been seeing readers’ excitement about the book, and seeing it start to appear on shelves in book stores! There really is nothing like the feeling of seeing your book for the first time in a real bookstore.

The Hummingbird Effect appears on shelves at Fairfield Bookshop and Eltham Bookshop!

I got out Anne Lamott’s brilliant Bird by Bird again this week to reread the Publication chapter:

There is something mythic about the date of publication, and you actually come to believe that on this one particular morning you will wake up to a phone ringing off the hook and your publisher will be so excited that they will have hired Blue Angels precision flying team to buzz your squalid little hovel, which you will be moving out of soon as sales of the book really take off.

Ah - Anne. Oh - the myth. Evidently it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been around the publishing block - we still have dizzyingly high expectations of life changing miraculously when that book hits shelves. I have learned a bit about expectation management but I also love this chapter of Lamott’s where she goes on to describe waiting by the phone and then lamenting the wait with another release-day author, because it speaks to our vulnerabilities when we put work out in the world.

Luckily I have things to do and distract myself with on publication day - I get to speak to the glorious Mel Fulton on her RRR show Literati Glitterati (check out past episodes - LOVED last week’s convo with Emily Perkins - author of Lioness!), have a glass of bubbles with a friend AND get to do an event about creative writing residencies at The Wheeler Centre - come along tonight if you’re in Naarm!

If you listen to The First Time podcast you’ll have heard me mention my plan for dealing with reviews this time around (past guests Helen Garner and Michelle de Kretser have entirely different strategies for this!): basically I’m asking my partner to read everything first and then let me know if it’s going to break me. Luckily this first review from Cassandra Atherton in ABR was pretty fabulous. I wrote about why Atherton’s words were particularly significant on instagram.

What I’m

Reading

LOVED Lioness by Emily Perkins - biting satire about middle age and capitalism - Perkins is so so good - will read anything she writes. Currently reading Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman - it’s big! - enjoying so far. I loved The Passage and love what he does with genre.

On my TBR pile are two books for an upcoming conversations at Canberra Writers Festival - Paul Dalgarno’s A Country of Eternal Light and Mirandi Riwoe’s Sunbirds. So excited for both these books and for a chance to speak with Paul and Mirandi at this event. Also on my TBR - SO many fabulous August releases including Alli Parker’s At the Foot of the Cherry Tree, Gabbie Stroud’s The Things that Matter Most, Lorin Clarke’s memoir Would that be funny? Growing up with John Clarke, Vanessa Len’s Never a Hero and Allee Richard’s Light in the Dark.

Listening to

My brilliant friend Penni Russon told me about The Retrievals - the new podcast from the Serial team and I have INHALED it. The story of women patients at a Yale IVF clinic who weren’t listened to when they complained of pain during egg retrieval, until it was discovered someone was swapping the fentanyl for saline. Brilliantly produced. And rage inducing. An age-old story of women being disbelieved and told to ‘hush’ when they complain - especially when they complain of pain. Highly recommend.

Watching

Barbie. Took my two girls on the weekend. Loved it. No hot takes here, just full of admiration for Gerwig, Robbie & their entire team. I laughed so hard. I cried - loudly. No spoilers but the Gosling/Push guitar scene is worth the price of admission alone - particularly for any woman (every woman?!) who has ever been ‘guitared’ at. We left with extreme kickass, destroy the patriarchy Barbie energy and it’s - thankfully - hanging around.

Doing

Going on book tour, baby! There’s a bunch of dates and places up here and we are adding to it every week! Off to Sydney on Monday 7th August with Anna Downes (now up against the Matildas but we will be keeping track side stage!) and with Mirandi Riwoe in Brisbane at Avid on Wednesday 9th. Would LOVE to meet you. Especially excited about taking my kids and ma and pa on the road in Southern NSW for bookshop visits and events at Boorowa, Huskisson, Moruya and Candelo Books in September!

Will also let you know here first about two exciting events with limited spots: one with the fabulous Verso Books and a very special guest on Saturday 26th August and the other with the fabulous Sally Hepworth and debut star Amy Lovat on Friday 13th October in Elwood. Stay tuned to my socials for ticket release!

Thank you - as always - for your presence here and a very special thanks to all of you who have sent best wishes for The Hummingbird Effect or pre-ordered the book or tickets to an event. I’m incredibly grateful to every single person who engages with the book and so excited to hand it over to readers at last.

The Bowerbird may be a little off-kilter for the next month or so while I’m on tour, please stick around and I promise to be back on the other side. K x