KATIE MARIE

It’s that time of year again, the annual ritual of looking back and asking, how on earth did all of that happen in twelve months? Looking at 2025 in hindsight, the only explanation I can offer is that I briefly became three separate people. One of them was powered entirely by coffee, one by mild spite, and the third was quietly screaming into the void, but was very productive about it.

A Year of Relentless Cultural Enrichment™

This was another year of aggressive culture consumption. I went to the cinema a lot. To name a few, ghosts were watched (Presence), vampires were observed (Nosferatu), missing kids were seen (Weapons), and animated chaos unfolded (Summer Wars). More than one film left me staring at a wall afterwards, wondering if I needed a lie down or a personality reassessment (Cottontail, I’m looking at you).

The theatre also got a lot of my money. Opera, ballet, musicals, comedy shows, and whatever Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake was, I still don’t fully understand it, but I felt very cultured afterwards.

There was also a significant amount of outside. Mr Sherlock and I explored parks, forests, beaches, and basically anywhere within driving distance that had a sign saying “Country Park” or “Broad.” If there was a muddy path and a nice view, we were on it. Add to that Formula One at Silverstone, Comic Con in London, and a couple of domestic city breaks in London and Cambridge, and suddenly it’s clear why my calendar looked afraid of me.

Then, because we apparently weren’t busy enough, we went on a two-week Baltic cruise and visited Copenhagen, Tallinn, Kiel, Visby, and Helsinki. This was equal parts beautiful and educational, as sea days had me sitting on a ship reading books about academic writing instead of relaxing like a normal person.

Domestic Chaos (The Fun Kind)

On the home front, we did what can only be described as projects. We tore the garden apart. Literally. Then we put it back together in a more interesting way, and, crucially, in a lower-maintenance way. I’ve learned over the past five years that while I can keep houseplants alive with impressive consistency, outdoor plants sense my fear and exploit it.

We also turned the conservatory into a home gym, which involved dismantling a rarely used dining table and replacing it with a rowing machine and a weight bench. Does that count as DIY? I don’t know, but it did improve our lives and reduce the amount of unused furniture silently judging us.

We also built a display case for all the gacha we got in Japan last year, which is the strongest evidence I have that personal growth and tiny plastic figures can peacefully coexist.

The Big PhD Year™

2025 was, academically speaking, A LOT.

There were multiple conferences, some where I presented (terrifying), and some where I attended and listened very hard while nodding like a thoughtful owl. There were regular supervisions, all of which came with deadlines, expectations, and the gentle hum of existential dread. But it all paid off, because in June 2025 I PASSED MY UPGRADE. This is the academic equivalent of slaying a dragon and then immediately being handed a form to fill in afterwards.

Passing my upgrade unlocked something truly magical: brain space. For the first time in a year, I could look ahead to what I want my post-PhD world to look like, and that world includes teaching. So, I’ve been attending seminars and workshops to build teaching skills, and I was lucky enough to be accepted onto my university’s Teaching Scheme. This means I am now an unofficial TA on a creative writing degree. I’ve already run a workshop solo, attended module meetings, and I’m hoping to try my hand at marking next month.

Alongside this, I decided it would be sensible to start establishing myself academically. That meant learning how to write academic articles, the peer-reviewed, footnoted, soul-testing kind. I spent a large portion of the cruise reading books about how to write these articles (which tells you everything you need to know about me). Still, it worked because at the end of 2025, I submitted my first academic article to a journal. There’s no official feedback yet, but the unofficial comments have been encouraging, and I am choosing optimism.

Creative Work Escapes the Hard Drive

Outside the PhD, creative work did the most alarming thing it can do it left my hard drive and entered the real world.

I finished a draft of A Man in Winter (screenplay version) and sent it off to a screenplay doctor/editor. I sold four short stories this year and had two non-academic articles accepted for publication. Women in Horror Month happened, promotions happened, and I even appeared on a couple of podcasts.

Words I wrote ended up in places where other humans could see them. No refunds were requested, so I am counting it as a success.

Other Things That Somehow Also Happened

Somewhere in all of this, I kept up volunteering at the National Centre for Writing as an event steward, attended writing workshops, and even squeezed in a couple of coding workshops for the day job.

Oh, and then, very casually, Mr Sherlock and I got married. I am officially ‘the wife’ now.

So… Was 2025 Calm?

No.

It was not calm.

It was not minimal.

It was not particularly sensible.

But it was alive. It was full of stories, work that mattered, and moments that felt earned rather than rushed (although, yes, quite a few were rushed).

If nothing else, 2025 proved that I can do academia, the day job, creative work, volunteering, personal life, and absolute nonsense, and keep going anyway.

Here’s to 2026, may it be slightly quieter.

(Spoilers: It will not be quieter.)