| As pre-production on the Buried Country roadshow continues apace (scroll down for previous newspost) and Sydney continues to experience heatwave conditions, late March/early April, for me, is hotting up even more. In the foreshadow of going to Brisbane over April 2-3 for Australia’s first-ever (OMG!) Rock & Roll Writers Festival, it is with disbelief almost that I can report I have been included on Good magazine's 2016 ‘Good 100’ list of, well, 100 good people doing good things all round the world, which has just been announced at a bang-up launch party at the South X South-West festival in Austin, Texas, that I was sadly unable to attend. And there I was thinking I’m just a ratbag-cum-schlepper at best! |
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| To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how the dominoes tumbled that got me on the Good list (though it had to have had something to do with Buried Country) and I still can't quite work out how it all goes fully public either, short of being published in the hard copy of the magazine, which I understand is in the process of coming out at time of this writing. I can make a link here to a sample 10 Good people on the list that is thus far available online, but beyond that I can really only quote from the magazine's press-release, which reads: GOOD Magazine’s 2016 “GOOD 100” list captures 100 individuals who are improving the world through creativity and innovation. The 2016 GOOD 100 includes honorees from 37 countries in six categories: health; earth; justice & equality; spaces; information; stories. (Whether I'm the only Australian on the list is just one of the details about which I'm still unsure…) “There’s an impressive sense of urgency that we’re celebrating in our fifth installment of the GOOD 100, which honors people who are acting right now,” said Caroline Pham, deputy editor, GOOD Magazine. “None of these 100 individuals are doing this work for the accolades—which is precisely why they deserve all the more recognition.” Certainly, since the only prize I've ever won in my life was a so-called Academy Award in the Under-15s for being the biggest poser (and I'm still scarred by it, can't you tell?), I'm deeply flattered, in all seriousness, to receive such an honour. At risk of appearing in the slightest churlish, I hope it might help bring a bit more recognition in my homeland, where I'm just becoming sick and tired of being an eternal outlier. I will post up more details as they come to hand... As for the rockwritefest, well, I just hope it will be a hoot. Organisers Leanne de Souza and Joe Woolley have been rewarded for their boldness (rare in this country) with a lot of support and a really good vibe surrounding the whole thing in the lead-up. See here the program in full, here me spruiking it at Scenestr, and here theaureview's preview, whose five highlight picks include the two sessions in which I will participate. Hope to see you there. |
