Time to look back – SCENIC WRITERS style – on the year that was 2024.

It all went along something like this…

Remember the time that thing happened? Me neither.

Look inside for inspirational quotes. You won’t find any but there’s heaps of other cool stuff.

There’s First Love… and there’s Writer Love.

If you’re an Aussie – and maybe even if you’re not – there was only ever gonna be one clear pick for STORY OF THE YEAR. It happened during the Paris Olympics back in August…

For me, nothing in 2024 came close to the three minutes of bleeding-edge intensity unleashed in this mash-up video.

I stumbled upon it on the internet one day back in February and instantly fell under its spell. Fedora hats off to the person who put it together, someone going by the name of TROPHY PRODUCTIONS. Mind freaking genius, if you ask me.

LOVE – LOVE – LOVE this!

Ok, so Mike Tyson may have been snailing around that ring against Jake Paul at times more like a 70-year-old searching for his pipe and slippers, but it was ‘Iron Mike’ – or at least a version of him – back in the ring – and that WAS a sight.

Actor Carl Weathers (aged 76) – February

Brisbane Used Car Dealer John Zupps

What’s left to say, but…

See you in January for the launch of SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK’s 2nd annual Short Story Competition.

Literary eye-candy your thang? You came to the right place. Here’s some of the year’s best…

(A) Any cover with in-built condensation bubbles does the job for me.

(B) When are a set of lips not a set of lips? When they’re a set of eyes.

(A) There’s strong art and then there’s string art.

(B) Feels dangerous and alluring. All-round one a-maze-ing cover.

(A) It hurts my eyes, in the best possible way—a bonkers, irreverent cover for a bonkers, irreverent writer.

(B) This ‘Migration’ style font – if that’s what we want to call it – is clever.

(A) That is one glorious rat. Those are glorious rat gloves, too.

(B) A literal interpretation of a super weirdo but very cool title.

(A) The cover for Rushdie’s memoir about his assassination attempt must have been tough to get right. This nails it.

(B) Check out the blurb placement. Inspired!

(A) Fish with boosted self-esteem? Amazing!

(B) The audacity, indeed. I love a book cover that feels goofy and highbrow at the same time.

(A) The insane, sherberty visual is perfectly balanced here with the harsh black text. 

(B) Another perfectly insane book cover, to go with a perfectly insane title.

(A) Three covers for the price of one. Would you call it layering?

(B) That cat!

(A) Text as image. Outside-the-box and dread-inducing.

(B) So much going on here, blood droplets included.

(A) Weird and a little bit witchy.

(B) Are those hands male or female?

(A) This cover, with it’s accompanying title, is quite literally drowning in mystery.

(B) Yep, that’s what you call a hyper-saturated cover.

(A) A truly psychedelic cover for a book about a fabulously psychedelic band.

(B) Who put the holes in the bird? Or as the corkscrew in the mouth may imply, did he do it himself?

(A) Turn that frown upside down? Done!

(B) Blob cover perfectly represents a story about a day – November 18th – that endlessly repeats for main character Tara.

And by special request (ok, mine!) I’ve been asked to make mention of this 2024 release published back in February.