Happy birthday to me and other great news

I wouldn’t typically put it as openly as the above, but hey, it’s my birthday, that’s nice, and I finally seem to have learned in recent years that you don’t get anything unless you put yourself out there a bit and let people know what is what 🙂

So, it’s another birthday, with of course many more to come, and I won’t say how old except to say that next years’ is bigger than this one…!

I’m really very happy with much of what I have now, my lot in the world and all that. An interesting job, a wonderful life, adorable kids that I can so easily spend a lot of time with, a good house and time to enjoy these and many other things. There’s that feeling in the back of my mind that things could change for a variety of reasons (though that’s mostly only the job, in the next 12 months), but why worry too far forward. Life is meant to be fulfilling and enjoyable, and now.

And since it’s my birthday, it’s great to get some other surprising and appealing news:

Walkley Foundation Grants for Innovation in Journalism

Shortlist announced for inaugural Walkley Grants for Innovation in Journalism

Collaborative storytelling, video crowdsourcing and mentoring for budding journalists in high schools are among the big ideas shortlisted for the inaugural Walkley Grants for Innovation in Journalism. The Walkley Foundation is proud to announce a shortlist of six projects which will go on to compete for $40,000 in seed funding for innovative media projects.

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• “Youth Bytes” by Stephen Turner: An online hub for student news production, providing mentoring by journalists and editors and a place for publication and networking.

 

Yes… that’s me in the link, as a finalist for a Walkley Grant for Innovation in Journalism. Pleased with this on so many levels (but now with loads of work to do!) It is tangentially related to my fiction project Youth Bytes, but goes in a different direction of real world teaching and real world applications. I got a particular hook to this project that I hadn’t thought of before, and I hope it might be the hook that put me over the line in terms of shortlisting success. I’ll be sure to post more about this process as it happens, since there will be some travel and some special activities to go with this.

So yes, a happy birthday and more exciting projects to come 🙂