A Very Delicious Book Launch

[Nov/Dec 2025]

Books, Postcards & Beautifully Crafted Desserts at the book launch of "Hi! My Name is Sam". Photo Credit: Ms. Trang.

Dear friends, family and collectors,

The month of November was filled to the brim with life and love and family visits and wholesome events and book sales and necessary endings and new beginnings. The book launch for "Hi! My Name is Sam" was held three weekends ago at our home here in Vietnam. With a bit of planning, my sister and I managed to schedule the book launch to coincide with the last evening of her visit. I wanted the launch to be an intimate, invitation-only affair with beautifully made small-eats and cosy spaces for connecting and chatting. One of the big benefits of having a Meister Konditorin (Master Pastry Chef) as my sister is that when she caters for an event the desserts look like something belonging at the High-Tea of an upper upper class hotel [[I fear all our friends who attended will, from here on out, be forever disappointed with the quality of desserts I am able to bake for them at our future dinner parties][We shall fix this problem by feeding you copious amounts of very delicious wine (and food, of course) instead]. Needless to say, my sister's chaos buffet (as she calls it (LOVE the name!)) was a roaring success. 

There is nothing better than being able to celebrate the completion of a big project with a party, an event or an exhibition of some sort. As someone who works alone I have come to realise the value in creating events such as these in order to appropriately honour the time and love spent on a project or a body of work. Artworks and books and all other carefully crafted things require the presence and attention of others just as deeply as we, the artists, authors and makers do. Being able to share my work with others, especially in such a special setting (my home being one of my most treasured places), gives me a lot of pleasure and joy and brings with it a sense of achievement that is not based on outward success (like sales and so forth).

For the longest time there was a part of me that believed that the success of a book project or body of work could only really be measured in whether a good gallery or publisher was willing to recognise and exhibit or publish my work. And, of course, when that doesn't happen, as is so often the case in the creative industry, your sense of failure as a creative individual becomes greater and heavier. A few months ago, I realised that something within me had slowly begun to shift, and the importance which I used to attach to external recognition and the building of a career was no longer quite as important as it used to be.

I realised that the "small" things which I had been filling my days with, like going to my local market, drinking cà phê sữa đá (Vietnamese iced coffee) with my Vietnamese friends, learning to speak the language, walking with Sam in the park, teaching English to my various students, writing about my experiences here, having a glass of wine with my husband at the end of the day, and drawing and painting for the pure joy of creating something, had become very real sources of joy and inner triumphs within my life. What was holding me back at times from simply enjoying the life that I already had was not that I kept getting rejections from galleries and publishers, but that I had been holding onto the idea, the dream, that once I got their recognition, then I would be truly happy and successful. Turns out, I already was happy, and so letting go of what wasn't so that I could be present for what is was a large part of my journey these past few months.

You are Here, and I am Happy.

So thank you to all of you who attended my book launch and to everyone far and wide who have purchased copies of my book. The joviality and goodwill that you brought with you will infuse my memories of the night for a long time to come. "Hi! My Name is Sam" has been launched into the world on wings of joy and good cheer! Your presence, support and kind words have given me great happiness and marked this project as a success irrespective of the amount of copies it might still sell.

On Sunday, the 7th of December, I am off to South Africa to spend my summer vacation next to the sea with my family and friends. May you all have a wonderful festive season and an awesome New Year!

Until next year.

With all my love,

Nicola

PS. As always, if you enjoyed my musings and know of anyone who might also enjoy my ramblings please forward my blog to them, your support will be greatly appreciated. I would also love to hear from you. So any responses or comments or creative stories of your own that you might have and would like to share with me, please reach out!

PPS. I know it is a Brave New World when I need to start ending off my newsletters with the statement that this newsletter was fully written by me using my fallible human mind and fingers (hands?). I have never, and will never use AI to write it for me, as the writing of these newsletters serve as a kind of month-in-review for me, and that is invaluable. Same goes for my artwork and illustrations. All images, photographs, illustrations and artworks which you see in my newsletters were created by me, by hand in the real world (unless credited otherwise).