I'm four months into 2018 and I realise I haven't really been saying too much on this little blog/website of mine. Maybe it's because things have been moving so quickly, I haven't really been able to pause and reflect.

Today I have that opportunity.

I'm lucky enough to be one of the newish (new was in Feb!) interns at Channel 31 Melbourne. I've learnt so much in my time there so far, skills I hadn't really even tried to pick up before. I can now edit with confidence, light a small space with confidence and supervise or even use a camera with confidence.

The old me would say "oh that's not really what I'm good at", and let someone else do it. But now I am eager to learn anything that lands in my lap.

It has meant my writing went on the back burner for a little bit. However, I am now taking part in the Dirty Thirty poetry challenge, also known as National Poetry Writing Month. I've written a poem for all ten days of April so far, and have tried to keep as close to the prompt as possible. It's been fantastic to be apart of a great community where all the poets are supportive, but you are also able to keep yourself accountable for reading and writing.

If you're a poet or writer, I strongly recommend you get amongst it!

Anyway, that's all from me for now.

xxmk

It is a bit of an old saying, but it's the most accurate description of my life at the moment. For a long time, I had too much free time on my hands, I was desperate to get my hands dirty but could only find short term projects.

I've taken up work at Channel 31 interviewing some great musicians for their new show SHUFFLE; Melbourne. This included sitting down and having a chat with the chill king, Pete Murray. I'm too excited about this new venture, it's something I've always wanted to do, just sit down and chat with creatives, and maybe pick their brains a bit.

You can watch my interview with Pete here.

So that was one huge venture. The what also came to pass was that my new book, Postcard Poetry, has arrived in all its glory. Stay tuned, because there will be a launch and a poetry reading for it coming soon.

Then bam, alam, slam, ding dong - I've fallen heart first into Melbourne's slam poetry community and I am in love. I took part in the Australian Poetry Slam Victorian heat in Frankston on Tuesday. It was a great night of sharing and was followed by bonding over some cheeky Nandos later on. I headed over to the Melba Spiegletent for Slamalamadingdong's opening round for the National Poetry Slam. This was a very emotional night of sharing, especially as Gabriella Georges was the featured artist for the night and her poignantly beautiful performance was centred on grief and loss.

Just when I needed a moment to lie down and breathe, I was sacrificing my Saturday morning sleep in. I made my directorial debut for a short film I've written, No Matter What. This film is going to be entered in the Village Cinemas and Open Channel UnScene Competition. I'm so excited, it's a highly stylised film and set in the future, in keeping with the competitions theme of "the future of film". We have one more day of production and then we're gonna have a long stint in post-production with some cheeky visual effects.

I'm so glad that I've got all these creatives that surround me in my life. It's encouraging and inspiring me to keep creating, keep dreaming and the points don't matter.

xxmk