Are you the sort of person who signs petitions? 📝

I'm not, though maybe I should be.

If I'm going to complain, all the time, I may as well do it in writing, to the people with the authority to change things.

I suppose I worry that if I start petitioning, it will never end. I just signed a petition on change.org (more about that in a second) and then I immediately saw another five worthy causes. Should we send more aid to Nepal? Well, I don't know how much we send already, but I'm sure more would be-- Should Coles Mid North Coast give more support to local farmers? I know even less about that, but I suppose they probably-- Do I oppose the building of a giant data centre which will turn massive amounts of power and water into pollution and lies? Well of course I do, but I just don't know enough about--

One thing I am across, though, is how teacher librarians change lives. I know, because one changed mine.

In Year 5 I had chronic ear infections. I don't know exactly how long they lasted, but I remember spending a fair bit of time in bed. I remember the antibiotics (and, when they didn't work, the acupuncture). I remember learning the difference between Gromit the dog and grommet the tiny tube in your eardrum. I remember guests having to be sent home early from my 11th birthday party because I wouldn't stop crying.

I'm not sure how much school I missed, but I remember being distracted in class. I already struggled to focus (later I was diagnosed with ADHD) and feeling like a nail was being slowly forced through my eardrum didn't improve my concentration.

But I also remember Mrs Pietsch, the teacher librarian at Lyneham Primary School, who hand-picked dozens of books for me. She had an amazing ability to predict exactly what I'd like. Sometimes the books she gave me were so absorbing that I didn't notice the pain from my ear at all. She even arranged for me and two friends to go on an excursion where we met Jackie French. (My mum drove us all in her Mazda 626. It was the nineties!)

By the time I got to Year 6, my ear had recovered. And even though I'd missed a fair bit of Year 5, I quickly caught up to my classmates, because I'd gotten bloody good at reading.

I won't pretend this is the only reason I grew up to become a writer. Real life isn't that simple. I had bookish parents, and I liked reading even before I got sick. Maybe I would've become a writer anyway. Either way, Mrs Pietsch made a rough year much nicer.

But not as many Australian schools have a Mrs Pietsch these days. Library budgets are shrinking. Catholic Schools Maitland-Newcastle just announced a plan to fire their teacher librarians (after the backlash, they clarified that they didn't mean all of them). I've noticed a growing view that books won't matter in the future, since all information will be online. (Meanwhile, AI companies are frantically buying books to train their models because online information is too low quality to be useful, especially since so much of it is AI-generated.) Meanwhile, fewer kids read for fun (and many can't read at all). And not to make it all about money (I think literacy is a human right, end of) but the Grattan Institute estimates that all these non-readers will cost the economy about $40 billion.

Anyway. Is all that worth signing a petition?

Up to you.

Upcoming events

My epic tour still isn't done--in fact, looking at all the stuff below, it seems like it's just getting started:

• September 11 to 13, NSW/VIC: Write Around the Murray Festival

• October 18, ACT: Canberra Writers Festival

• October 21, SA: Love, Crime and Wine

• October 24, ACT: Light Rail Local Reads

• October 29 to 30, SA: Once Upon a Festival

• November 4, Sydney: Choppy Water launch (details soon)

• November 7, Canberra: Choppy Water launch (details soon)

• November sometimes, Melbourne: Choppy Water launch (TBC)

 On top of all that, on September 18 I'll be going to the Friday Night Reset; a men's mental health boxing class in Canberra. I have no official role whatsoever. But these classes have been great for my mental health, and I'm worried they won't keep going if it's always just me and that guy with the epic moustache (and I've been on tour so much that it's probably just been him for a while). If you or a bloke you know feel like punching something, come along! 7pm, UBX Belconnen, $20 cash.

Stay awesome, folks!

-Jack