As a valued stakeholder of 'Kathryn van Beek: writer', please find your copy of my 2019 Annual Report below. The report is structured as follows: submissions, disappointments, successes, a tribute and a summary. 

Submissions
My goal was to make 100 submissions to journals, competitions, funding bodies etc, and I came close this year with approximately 81 submissions made. 
These 81 submissions yielded 9 successes and 38 declines. Twenty-three submissions still await their fates, and I withdrew 11 submissions after the stories were accepted elsewhere.  

Disappointments
Of those 38 declines, I would say that 35 were 'oh well' moments, while the other three led to full-blown  'what is the point in going on I should just impale myself upon my pen' crises. 
I am also disappointed in myself for not finishing the illustrations for the second Bruce the Cat book (working on them now!). 

Successes

• I won the Mindfood Short Story Prize and was Highly Commended for the Sargeson Prize
• I received a 'Complete Manuscript Assessment' from the New Zealand Society of Authors and finished the manuscript for Pet, my collection of short stories
• I completed Local Legends, a series about Port Chalmers pubs 
• I had stories published by Mindfood Magazine, takahē Magazine and The Valley Review (Massachusetts), and others have been accepted by Newsroom, Geometry and Cease Cows (USA) - look out for these in 2020
• I was asked by the Otago Daily Times to contribute to the Best Book in the World series (I picked Charlotte's Web)
• My story The Hoarder was included in Fresh Ink, and we had a wonderful book launch at the University Bookshop
• I was invited to participate in Little Landers Literature with the wonderful Robyn Belton again this year. Thanks Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature! 
• I participated in a number of events including Iona Winter's fabulous Te Hau Kāika, and the Wild Imaginings Children's Writers and Illustrators Hui (with Fifi Colston!)
• The Holidays Act Amendment Bill that I have worked on with MP Ginny Andersen had its first reading in Parliament. You can watch it being read here, and check out a One News story here
• In a success / fail mix I was shortlisted for the Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency (success!), but didn't secure it (fail!). However, I was described by Steve Braunias as "real funny and super talented" (success!) ... and I am just realising now several months too late that I should have made that description my Twitter bio (fail!). 

And of course I'm still managing social media for my cat, Bruce. He has over 46K Facebook followers now, the handsome devil. 

A tribute to David 
Writing the 'Best Book in the World' piece was one of the highlights of my year, and a real testament to the wonderful man behind the series - talented journalist and really nice bloke David Loughrey. Unfortunately David passed away recently. I don't know what to say except David, in the short time that I knew you, you really enriched my world. Thank you.   

Summary ... and hopes for 2020
Though I didn't get the exact feather in my cap that I really wanted this year, I did pick up a bunch of other very nice feathers. 

In 2020 I hope to publish both Pet and Bruce Goes Outside (my second children's book), and get a little further along on my doctorate of professional practice. 

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me this year. I love Aotearoa's literary scene - everyone I've met has been so generous and kind. Wishing all of you a happy and successful 2020. 

I had a really special morning on Saturday reading Bruce Finds A Home to the kids at Blueskin Bay Library. We heard another reading about a lost cat needing to find its home, and some lovely volunteers from Dunedin Cat Rescue came along and talked to kids too. Then the kids coloured in some Bruce colouring sheets. They did a great job of colouring in the sky, with beautiful Dunedin sunrises making quite an appearance, along with a wonderful Matariki star cluster. 

I bought a fundraising catnip toy for our cat Jager (Bruce's 'big sister', and also a rescue cat) and she's was absolutely delighted with it. 

A writer's life is filled with ups and downs, as my spreadsheet of writing acceptances and rejections attests to. News that the short story collection I'm working on has been rejected, in part because someone thought it was a grab-bag of stories for both adults and children (it's not, and that's not even a thing!) made for a grumpy Saturday morning, but my frown turned upside down later in the day when issue 14 of Headland was released - complete with my short story, Speaking in Tongues. (If you like, you can check it out here. It's just $8 for Kindle, and you don't actually need a Kindle - you can just download the free Kindle app onto your phone, or read it on your computer.)

While I've had some bruising rejections lately, overall 2018 has been a pretty amazing year for me on the writing front. I published my first children's book, Bruce Finds A Home, and I got to visit local primary schools with illustrator Robyn Belton as part of the Little Landers Literature programme (thanks, Dunedin City of Literature!). One of my pieces of flash fiction was published in the Bonsai book, and another appeared on the North and South website. And of course, I had the incredible experience of undertaking the Creative Hub / Earthskin residency at Muriwai. Just writing this paragraph makes me feel incredibly lucky!

Another wonderful experience I had this year was also courtesy of the Headland team. I was invited to read my story Frangipani at Wellington's Litcrawl event as part of the Best Stories: Headland session. It was my first time at Litcrawl, which is an incredible mini literary festival that you should definitely try to get along to next year if you can. From being greeted at the airport by a lovely volunteer holding a sign with my name on it, to being put up in a sweet hotel, to being driven back to the airport by celebrated author and cool dude Brannavan Gnanalingam (whose thought-provoking novel, Sodden Downstream, I had just read) ... the whole experience was magical. The highlight was undoubtedly catching up with the Headland team and with fellow writers Iona Winter and Caoimhe McKeogh, who are all total goddesses, and I'm looking forward to attending Iona's book launch in Dunedin this Friday. 

So, what next? Well, I'm still working on the collection of stories (for grown-ups!) and I expect that will take a while to complete. I'm also working on the next Bruce the Cat picture book for children. I changed the pencils I'm using for the illustrations, and we're having a bit of trouble scanning the images, but I'm sure we'll get it resolved one way or another. And I have another project or two simmering away, which I should be able to tell you more about next year. 

But in the meantime I'm looking forward to finishing work for the year in a couple of weeks, and to spending long afternoons reading beneath the Pohutukawa tree. I hope you have a relaxing holiday planned too. Thank you so much for your support this year - it means the world to me. 

Wow, my children's book Bruce Finds A Home is going to be on The Cafe TV show on Monday 9 April! We pre-recorded the segment today. I got to hang out with Mel Homer and Mike Puru who are both seriously lovely. A huge thanks to my publicist Karen from Lighthouse PR for arranging this opportunity for me.
​Hmmm, perhaps I'd better start thinking about the next Bruce book?

Thank you so much to everyone who came to the Dunedin Bruce Finds A Home book launch. I had a fabulous morning getting to know these little creatures, which at the time I thought were cats but upon closer inspection look rather fox-like. 

I ran a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign to help fund the book, and as part of the campaign 73 people donated books to the Animal Rescue Network Dunedin. Today I was proud to deliver the 73 books to the network, and I hope they assist with fundraising. 

Bruce Finds A Home is now available in all good New Zealand book shops. You can also buy it online here:

• Dorothy Butler Book Shop
• University Book Shop
• Time Out Bookstore
• Bruce the Cat website
• Fishpond

The New Zealand Woman's Weekly is giving away four copies of 'Bruce Finds A Home'. Check out the magazine for entry details. 

Thank you so much to everyone who came along to the Auckland book launch for Bruce Finds A Home - and to everyone who helped me organise it. An extra big thank you to the lovely ladies at The Dorothy Butler Book Shop who made the experience so special. 

I'm looking forward to the Dunedin book launch this Saturday 17 February at the University Book Shop from 10.30am. All welcome!