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Nikky Lee
4 days ago4 min read

2024 Writing and Reading Wrap Up

I've lost count of the number of times I've told fellow writers to stop and take a moment to reflect on how far they've come. And as is often the way, I'm also quite terrible at following my own advice—I haven't done any sort of wrap up post in years. But NO MORE! 2024 was the year to get shit done, so by gods, muses, and all that is wordly, this wrap is happening albeit in a rambling, I-must-get-these-words-down-or-so-help-me kind of way.


(Also, putting this together has made me realise just how BIG a year it's been! Holy cow 😳)


🏆 Awards 🏆

This year I was thrilled to see Once We Flew win the 2023 Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novella, while my dark fantasy/horror short story "What Bones These Tides Bring" won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Short Story. I was also beyond excited to see the same short story shortlisted for the Australasian Shadow Awards for Best Short Story—I've never made these award lists before, so this shortlisting was both a surprise and a delight.


More recently, Once We Flew was also named as a Semi Finalist in the SFINCS2 competition (SFINCS, pronounced "sphinx" is the Speculative Fiction Independent Novella Championship, which is the little sibling of SPFBO and SPSFC).


🎧 First foray into audio 🎧

Following on the heels of the Aurealis Awards, I released the audiobook of Once We Flew, narrated by the superb Anna Maste. Anna's narration absolutely knocked this one out of the park. If you haven't listened to it already, you can find it linked here under the audio tab 👉 https://books2read.com/onceweflew


🛍️ Conventions 🛍️

This year I attended both of the Auckland Armageddons in June and October and shared my stall with epic horror poet S. J. Bradley who just released her first book this year! Much book talk was had along with author panels attended and author dinners devoured, but the highlight of both weekends was having readers stop by to let me know how much they enjoyed one of my books, it absolutely made my day.


Next year, I'll be including Christchurch Armageddon in the mix with YA sci-fi and fantasy author S. J. Pratt!


📚 New Releases 📚

Not only did I release two books this year, but I released them two weeks apart (for the record, I don't advise this if it can be helped 😅). A Night So Dark And Full Of Stars released on the 28th of September and The Rarkyn's Fall (The Rarkyn Trilogy Book 2) on the 16th of October. Suffice to say my social media scheduler was JAMPACKED.


This was my September 😱 Note to self: Let's not do that again.

Once again, a massive thank you to the people who were involved in the production of these two books: Cindy Kilbourne (editor), Austin Sheehan (editor), Isabeau Backhaus (design/illustration), Julia Blackmoore (proofreader), and Susan and Bryan Lee (proofreaders and proud parents 😆) and Anthony (coffee supplier and cheerleader). And of course, a huge heartfelt thank you to my beta readers, The North Shore Writers Group and Litopia friends.


🚀 Speculative Fiction Award Funding 🚀

2024 also saw Lee Murray Author, S R Manssen, Deb E Howell and myself team up to set up a new juried literary award for Aotearoa and Pasifika writers who write in the speculative genre. In November and December, we were estatic to learn that we'd recieved $30,000 in funding from Creative New Zealand and Copyright Licensing NZ to make it happen.


Watch this space for more news in 2025!


✍️ Works In Progress ✍️

Because releasing two books in the back quarter of the year wasn't enough, I also started drafting book three of the Rarkyn Trilogy (title as yet undecided so it's going by Rarkyn 3 for the time being, though "chonk 3" and "big beastie" are also in contention).


After a lot of stop starting between rounds of edits for A Night So Dark and Rarkyn's Fall, November was finally the time to really sink my teeth into it with 30,000 words added, followed by another 26,000 in December.


As of the last day of 2024, the manuscript sits at 75k, and I'm pretty pleased with that effort.


📘 Book highlights 📘

I tried to make a top reads list and found myself adding nearly everything I've read this year onto it. Honestly, this year has been soooo good in terms of reading enjoyment. So, to help me choose I've broken it into categories.











Honorable mentions

These came in close second or didn’t have a category:


Remains to Be Told - Edited by Lee Murray (read my review here)


The Bone Ship’s Wake by R.J. Barker






~Adios 2024!

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