Dear Friends. In these challenging times, may you find solace, strength & love in unlikely places & in abundance. Remember, we can only do our best with what we've got, however small & humble. Imagining hope is a big job but is within each and every one of us in 2024. May your loving God bless you & keep you safe.

My visual essay in VALA, the journal of The Blake Society in London, is called "A Field Manual for A Lost Soldier: William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as a Course in Complexity". Their theme is War & Peace. Marriage can help us unravel the complexity of our times. Military leaders also need reminding that limiting their creativity to technologies to kill blinds them to the shape-shifting qualities of Blake’s God and Satan.

I have new artwork in the most recent Issue 5 of The Australian Fabians Review 2023. Their editor invited me to share my painting ‘Australia a Prophecy’ under their topic of AUKUS in a large issue with many writers expressing themes shared by the Australian wing of the Fabian Society, an international labour movement think tank which has its origins in the UK in 1884.

This canvas is one of 4 images I painted for my visual essay in VALA 5. Written for an international audience, it is a comparative reflection on William Blake's rather complex 1790s poem ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ and the ‘UK Defence Doctrine 2022’ (UKDD), together with some philosophical classics which together create an alternate lens on new capabilities amidst current global, geopolitical tensions in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific of 2023…I hope it makes a positive contribution at a very challenging time for us all.

My new article for the Routledge journal Critical Military Studies explores my painting ‘Australia A Prophecy’ where I invite William Blake’s 18th century character Orc - from his poem America A Prophecy - to travel forward in time to Australia to guide an alternative imaginary lens to unpack the gendered, mythological stories driving geopolitical & military tensions in the Indo-Pacific where I live.

I’ve known Kelvin Ferris for over 10 years and, in that time, it has been clear to me that his service to Australia at the Battle of Coral-Balmoral during the Vietnam War in 1968 has remained a constant and difficult companion. This year, shrapnel embedded in his chest from that battle moved out from his ribcage. After it was removed, he seemed more open to talk about his experiences…