Soup, Support, & Substantiation.
A meaningful memorandum of minutiae, momentos, and monumentally mixed missives.
Hello, you.
It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? I last updated this little newsletter of mine in January, just before I headed off on a month-long book launch tour across the UK.
It’s now August, and six months since that tour concluded. So, what’s new in the world of Kestral Gaian?
Soup
Earlier this week I was making soup. The kind of Jewish Penicillin that my grandmother probably made. It was my first time making something complex and personal in my new kitchen following a house move, and I got quite reflective as I skimmed off the schmaltz and shaped the kneieydl.
I started thinking about 2023 and how I’d not updated this newsletter because I didn’t think I’d done much noteworthy since the book tour for Twenty-Eight came to an end. Then I realised that excuse - much like the kneieydl I’d just made - felt like absolute bollocks.
Support
To everything there is a season - or so Travis, The Byrds, and Kohelet would have us believe. A time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, or as I like to think of it, a time to need support, and a time to give support to others.
In the first few months of the year I tried to do the latter, supporting my incredible friends to do the incredible things they do in the arts.
From helping get George Parker’s debut novel republished and working with Linus and Joseph from Awkward Productions on a playscript of their amazing show ‘Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story’, to running panel events for marginalised authors during pride month, I wanted to channel as much energy as I could outside of my day job into supporting the wonderful people in my life.
Then the season turned. My nephew, who at six years old has now spent more than half his life battling cancer, took a turn for the worse. It became clear that we needed to start fundraising fast - and so many people came to offer support.
Awkward Productions ran a charity fundraiser, and everyone who I’d been championing earlier in the year shared our story far and wide. I am forever grateful for the support of everyone, though still slightly terrified at how far we still have to go.
Substantiation
Much of the past few months have also been taken up by doing big, tangible things. I moved house and now reside next to a place called God’s Own Junkyard, which sums up the area pretty well. I’m in love with the new digs - but as with anything there’s a period of adjustment that I don’t quite think I’m out of yet.
I’ve also been putting a lot of work into my day job, which I actually love and enjoy. I get to work on some pretty interesting stuff, and have recently been putting together a funding proposal for some research into how AI can help detect and treat cancer earlier than we are currently able to do.
Sadly none of the applications to fund this research (in the form of a PhD) have panned out in this round - but I’m going to keep working and applying to make this essential research happen.
What’s Next?
I’m so lucky that I get to work on things I’m passionate about both inside and outside of work.
As the next phase of 2023 gets underway, I’m working on more writing projects including a musical and a book that is mostly written, I’m polishing up my comedy show to hopefully perform at more places in the autumn, and I’m excitedly waiting for the start of the new academic year where I get to meet a new batch of students and do more exciting teaching at work.
I’ll announce any upcoming performance and tour dates online and here in this newsletter - and I’ll be sure to share when other creative projects come on the horizon.
For now, though, I’m going to sit back and enjoy this soup. A chronic overachiever’s still gotta eat.