For Christmas I received an incredibly cool gift of a curated book subscription from Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. I promptly filled out a very thoughtful questionnaire to gauge my interests and tastes, and then clicked send. They would then send a surprise book in the post to me each month. The first one arrived today in lovely packaging and I opened it eagerly to see what was inside. I was so pleasantly surprised. In a wonderfully strange twist of the universe, the novel they sent me was Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan, a book I had wanted to read since it came out. I met Megan ever so briefly when she did a reading at an event we hosted at our Lingo Spoken Word Festival and even then you could tell she was an excellent writer. There’s another interesting layer to this too. Her father Jim Nolan is someone I have known for many years and admired greatly as a writer. His first play, The Gods Are Angry Miss Kerr, was the first production by Red Kettle Theatre Company, and it was directed by my late father Tony Ryan. All of this has sparked such wonderful memories of that time. I recall it as great work being done by passionate and kind artists, and me, a young kid, taking it all in and hoovering up the ideas and creative energy. I still remember the feeling of being warmly welcomed into that artistic community, despite my tender age, and knowing that this was my tribe. And here we are today with this wonderful, fresh work of art that can be traced back directly to that time. This is truly a gift.