Yep, consider the above title a lame attempt at summarising some of the news from my studio-neck-of-the-woods. There's just *so* *dang* *much* going on right now [both here + on the global stage too, right? In fact, in relation to what's more worthy of your attention, you're probably better off reading this or this than you are the below, but I appreciate snatching some o' ur eyeballish real-estate for a minute or two if you do choose to read on].

Here's a quick summary of just some of the bigger things on the boil:

• I've been sitting on this embargoed news for a while now [which fortunately is fine as at the moment I'm more than sick to the teeth of "the socials" and have basically hijacked my own twitter account to mostly firehose current political/climate emergency news]: my V[R]ignettes VR project, a digital literature series comprised of Virtual Reality crafted microstories, has been shortlisted for the Queensland University of Technology Digital Literature Award as part of the 2019 Queensland Literary Awards. [Edit: I've also *just* been informed that V[R]ignettes has been accepted as part of The International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling 2019 Art Exhibit: "The submissions were diligently reviewed by our Distinguished Jurors: Jessica Bedingfeild, Suzzane Freyadis, and Al Johnstone...Evaluation by the jurors was done blind and independently relevant to the field of interactive storytelling through the broad lens of the curated theme: The Expression of Emotion in Humans and Technology."]

  

• On the "I-can't-quite-believe-this-as-I-never-EVER-thought-I'd-be-lucky-enough-to-have-work-exhibited-alongside-the-incredibly-great-Sam-Barlow" front, both Sam and I and a bunch of astoundingly talented game designers are soon to be showcasing a blistering variety of works in Buenos Aires at the 2019 Game On! Festival. For those of you not familiar with the Festival, it: "...explores the universe of art games, experimental video games, alternative controls, interactive play facilities and game studies".

  

• The amazing Kathi Inman Berens has announced the publication of "Creative Making as Creative Writing", a special issue of the Journal of Creative Writing Studies (R.I.T. Open Access) which contains 11 essays and artist statements including my own playable VR essay [which Kathi describes incredibly-flatteringly here: "Legendary Mez Breeze, winner of the Leusebrink Prize and one of the world's leaders in developing VR stories, wrote an artist's statement in VR!"].

  

• Kathleen Zoller has re-published a restored version of The Progressive Dinner Party, an historically crucial eliterature work that is a: "... multimedia book built on the Scalar platform that presents her project to restore Jennifer Ley, Margie Luesebrink, and Carolyn Guyer's special collection of women's electronic literature...published in Ley's journal, Riding the Meridian in 1996" containing a republished copy of one of my earliest web works, Blood Puppets: A Premillennium Manifesto [please try to excuse the "low-ressyness" image from the Manifesto below, remember that the work was made in the mid-1990's where low-res was hi-res back then].

  

• Waiting patiently [while tapping a Zen-like foot, not] for my contributor copy of Rhizome's dead-tree printed version of their seminal Net Art Anthology to arrive at my door, an Anthology which: "...retells the history of net art from the 1980s to the present day through thematic essays and interview extracts. It centers around the 100 works selected, restored and presented as part of the Net Art Anthology initiative, which originated as an online exhibition series in 2016 and continues with a touring gallery exhibition from January 2019."

• I've been busy-beaverishly crafting and releasing a trio of new VR Sculptures including The Flow[er] + The Spike which has garnered oodles of lovely feedback, such as "Amazing, unique and creative as ever" [Barry Snaith] + "This is so beyond awesome, I don't have words really" [Belinda A Taylor] + "Positively regal and gothic" [Kevin Ang]!

  

• Being lucky enough to be interviewed by Kate Pullinger, Donna Hancox + Amy Spencer [such massively inspiring + definitively lovely gals, with a dash of the equally talented Simon Groth thrown into the interviewer mix] for an article to be published at The Writing Platform: keep your peepers peeled for it.

• Our XR Artists Collective [co-founded with redonkuously-amazing Kevin Ang and chugged along by our ultra-whoo-worthy human thinktankers] is full-steam forging ahead, with a podcast, mentorship program, and event meetups all happening.

• Teaming up with the unbelievably prolific + all-round-superb-purrrson Erica Southgate to explore VR-focused creativity and helping teachers understand the potential of the technology for the creative process [+ more].

  

• Kent McCarter, the fizzonically hardworking CEO and Managing Editor of Cordite Publishing, has ping-invited me [+ a co-editor of my choosing, exci-tingly stuff indeed] to guest edit an edition of Cordite Poetry Review.

• The shiny-wonderful Anna Nacher has announced the publication of the 1st Edition of "Cultures of Participation: Arts, Digital Media and Cultural Institutions" that includes her chapter "VR – the Culture of (Non)Participation? Reframing the Participative Edge of Virtual Reality" in which she references a whole slew of us VR artists: "Building on the notion of systemic image, interface studies and the apparatus theory developed in film studies, I'm referring also to e-lit artworks and scholarship, by Jill Walker Rettberg, Scott Rettberg, Søren Pold and Christian Ulrik Andersen, Anne Sofia Karhio, Mez Breeze, Illya Szilak."

  

• Finally [there is more but ohmigerd that *has* to be enough for now, phew] my 2014 project [critiquing the potential "colonisation" of associated AR and VR technologies] "T[he]Issue": A Geospatial and Mixed-Locative Colonisation Document is being exhibited at The Wrong Biennale in the WhatDoWeDoNow Pavilion between the 15th and the 30th of November in Malta, and then showcased via various locations in Valletta - art spaces, non art spaces and public locations.