I always struggle to enjoy New Year’s Eve. The prospect of welcoming 2017 was especially unappealing—I was still trying to get over some rather cruel feedback that my favourite writing teacher had sent me about my entire body of fiction. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out to a literary party at a bar in Northcote that used to be an abandoned warehouse. The group bonding activity at the party entailed assembling in a circle and patting each other on the back.

I’d brought along an illustrator friend, Jeff, who really tried to fit in. He said to the bartender-slash-writer, ‘Evelyn Waugh was a man, did you know?’ It was very sweet. As I scoped out the room, I realised no-one at the party had published Jeff’s work, so I pretended not to know him. I left him in the corner to hum R.E.M. and draw sad faces in his journal.