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My dear friend

I hope this email finds you nicely resolved even while you wonder, ‘Should I start this email with “happy new year” or should I start it with, “when is it too late in the year to begin an email with ‘happy new year’?”

Goodness, Adelaide Writers’ Week has got the year off to a flaming start, has it not? Generally, I sit so far on the fringes of things that while I recognise all of the people and understand all of the issues I don’t, however, know people who know things. Which means that by and large when events of any consequence are unfolding I don’t warrant much attention by people who want to know things. However such is the depth and breadth of this extraordinary turn of events that even my inbox and chats are brimming.

As an indication of how extraordinary these days have been, I offer you my first poem of 2026:

My phone has been ringing.
My phone has been ringing, and
I have answered it.
My phone has been ringing, and
I have answered it
more than once.

This is not to make light of an extraordinarily sobering unfolding of events, more to note the extraordinariness of such events. I have written on instagram about my decision to withdraw from the Adelaide Writers’ Week program. In truth, it wasn’t even really a decision given I would have been talking about my new book Pearls: Memoir Strands which is grounded in my mother’s commitment to the strength of community and the power of the arts to help us make sense of the world.

If you are looking to read more I highly recommend the latest piece from Rick Morton’s newsletter, The Great Silencing. What an incredible writer he is.

Meanwhile, just as I have done in so many Januaries past, I have been feverishly working on the script of my new solo show. This year it is called Who Killed Gough Whitlam? and it is scheduled to open in only a matter of weeks.

I have left memoir behind, and am relishing the chance to lose myself in a fictional world. At its core, this is a light-hearted story about a group of friends and a bichon frisé called Gough Whitlam. It is the first in my new cosy mystery series which I hope to develop into a series of novels and herewith the blurb:

The stitch and b**ch group is back, and a message has dropped in the group chat: Gough Whitlam, the Bichon Frisé is kidnapped! As the clues unravel, so do their relationships, and their unlikely investigation reveals more than just who took the dog. 

I also intended to explore the wider theme of the slow death of progressive politics in our country but in a light-hearted way. The whole thing feels simultaneously prescient and naive, and I have half-considered abandoning it altogether. But I’ve sold quite a few tickets, and I’m kind of enjoying writing an entirely fictitious piece of silliness, and I have mapped out the whole series. So I will press on, continuing to laugh at my own jokes as I write because as my dad once said, ‘If you can’t laugh at your own jokes, why would you expect anyone else to?’

In that glorious stretch of time between Christmas and New Year I read Sean Kelly’s Quarterly Essay The Good Fight: What Does Labor Stand For? I found it overall disappointing in its focus almost entirely on Anthony Albanese with almost no mention of the ALP membership and very little mention of Gough Whitlam who—whatever you think of this most divisive of figures—must surely be at the foundation of any discussion about what a Labor government stands for? But I very much enjoyed the provocation of the rather philosophical opening:

What does it mean when we say that somebody “believes” something? Or let’s start somewhere more personal. What do you mean when you say that you believe something?

For myself, I think it is a mix of elements, none of them particularly sharp or clear: a loosely held sense of the way things should be; some moral compass inside myself. It is probably clearest not when I am asked the direct question but when I have to react to something somebody else is saying or doing. Then I feel some movement within myself, I respond, something feels right or it feels wrong, and I can express a conviction. It is this movement within that most strongly points to my belief. I find I know what I think.

At an old pub in Sydney, talking about this essay, a friend suggests that belief is at once more deeply and more vaguely felt than we apprehend: that we should pay attention to the way it resides in memories, images, the parts of society with which you identify yourself. He is not religious but says to me that he could never be not-Catholic, nor not-Labor. This is a matter of his history, his family, the memories he has, the suburbs in which he grew up.

And now that you have thought about what you mean by “believe,” I have other questions: exactly what is it that you believe? Is it something you are able to articulate? Or is the idea that you do, in fact, believe something solid merely an idea you hold about yourself, one you have held onto for years without properly examining?

It is in that context I have been thinking about what it is that I believe. I have found that to be an enriching experience and a useful platform for writing a new script.

Adrian and I spent most of our Christmas / New Year break in the Clare Valley which meant regular trips to our favourite cafe Cafe 1871. They serve excellent coffee—truly excellent—but their large coffee is extremely large.

On one of our visits, Adrian and I witnessed a woman who was obviously visiting the town, and had come along to the cafe with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter. I say ‘obviously’ because the tone of the conversation was one which was outwardly convivial, but was weighed down with the unmistakable tones of weariness and defensiveness that are so commonplace at this time of year.

The woman—who was about my height but much smaller in stature—ordered a large coffee with an extra shot. At this point her daughter-in-law said ‘the large is really large’; the young woman taking the orders said, ‘the large is three shots’; and the daughter-in-law repeated, ‘the large is three shots.’

At which point, the woman said, ‘Yes, large. With an extra shot.’

My dear friend FOUR SHOTS. That’s a high price to pay for asserting your autonomy and personal agency. Families, eh?

A few hours ago, Adrian came to ask me whether I would like a coffee and an almond croissant.

I said, ‘I was thinking of wandering down to the surf club to get a coffee.’

Pause.

Me: ‘Shall we go together?’

Adrian: ‘That sounds nice, I’d like that.’

Me: ‘Okay, you can come, but you’re only allowed to talk about what I want to talk about.’

Beat

Me: (laughing) ‘I can’t believe I said that out loud.’

Adrian (unspoken): I can.

At the surf club, I reminded Adrian that he is an Influencer Husband (he never remembers without prompting) and he took a series of photos of which this is the least terrible:

I bought the dog an over-priced biscuit treat. If you drew a heatmap of the relationships within our family unit, it’s an indisputable given that the least heated threads would be those between me and the dog. It’s not that we don’t like each other, it’s just that there’s other beings in the family unit we each like more than we like each other. However, the dog also knows that I am the one who offers the most frequent and the most excellent treats. Today, for example, I bought him an over-priced dog treat from the surf club cafe. My Influencer Husband took several photos of me and the dog of which this is the least terrible:

I said to Adrian, ‘For the dog treats you can choose between peanut paste, chicken or beef and I chose peanut butter.’

Then I said, ‘What do you think it tastes like?’

Adrian said, ‘Probably peanut paste.’

I said, ‘Can you try a bit and let me know?’

He didn’t reply.

I said, ‘Please?’

The conversation went on a little bit longer, but it was fairly one-sided. Then—to the great surprise of us all—I took a little nibble. Adrian said, ‘What does it taste like?’ I said, ‘I’m not telling. If you want to know you’ll have to try it yourself.’

Then we walked home past the yacht club where Adrian made me walk around the back so we could look at the tractors and he could point out the kind of rollbar he’s thinking of getting for our tractor. This wasn’t on the list of things I wanted to talk about, but I was buoyed by the iced latte I’d only recently finished so I listened anyway.

My dear friend, It’s time for me to return to my script.

I will write again soon, but until then I will think of you often and with love.

Your friend,

Tracy x

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