Reading · No Shelf Control

Have you heard? 2016 is having a moment.

And wow, my life looked wildly different back then.

Walk with me down memory lane.

I created online learning for health professionals. Every day, I schlepped into the city on the train, deep in the daily grind.

I knew pretty quickly that corporate life wasn’t for me. Too many meetings that should’ve been an email. An open-plan office that felt like sensory overload. And a calendar clogged with morning-tea baby showers.

Okay, I liked the baby showers. And the mini cupcakes.

But the rest? A hard no for this weird little introvert.

I spent most of my time daydreaming about one thing: how to work from home and never have to attend another team-building activity again.

I work from home and I bloody love it.

I’m a virtual assistant for aspiring and published authors. A plot twist I didn’t see coming.

My work fits around my kids’ school days and holidays, not the other way around.

And working with writers? Genuinely the best. They’re creative, kind, and hands-down the nicest people I’ve ever worked with.

One year married and living in suburbia – a lovely area. You know, traffic, the occasional burglary, and a Red Rooster that we all suspected was a front for shady dealings.

My pug was impeccably behaved. My toddler, not so much. I lived in constant fear of cutting his toast the wrong way.

Ten years married and living in the country. Yeehaw!

We did a tree change and bought land to build our dream house on, which (finally) gets finished this year.

Moving rural was the best decision we’ve ever made.

My pug is still kicking on. He’s lost his hearing and eyesight but can sniff out the tiniest crumb like his life depends on it.

As for kids, now I have two boys. Double the joy, double the mess. Hashtag blessed etcetera.

I started a secret Instagram account where I chatted with strangers on the internet about motherhood. Not the “it’s the best job in the world” bullshit. The real stuff. The things we’re not allowed to say out loud because it makes us a bad mum.

Behind the scenes, I was quietly building a website where other mums could share their truths too.

Little did I know that the following year, that website would launch and completely change my life.

I’m a published author. Say whaaat?

It wasn’t even on my radar ten years ago.

And yet, here I am with an actual book, sitting on actual shelves, in actual bookstores.

Please don’t judge the quality of my writing on that last sentence. I swear I’m better than that.

Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. I’d say things turned out pretty well.

Sat 14 Feb (4 PM - 5 PM) Readings Hawthorn, VIC

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Thur 5 Mar (6 PM - 7:30 PM) Readings Chadstone, VIC

Bridie Blake’s Book Launch: The Boyfriend Clause

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What if your favourite beauty brand was actually a cult?

When Marnie Sellick joins the beauty brand rytuał cosmetica, she is seduced by its enigmatic founder. But beneath the millennial-pink gloss lies something far darker …

Corporate horror • Feminine rage • Revenge • Psychotic • Sinister • Dark comedy • Hyperfeminine menace

Unhinged in the best kind of way.

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