Some scattered highlights of 2012

As the year comes to an end, what were some highlights? Well, they would include my trip to the US early in the year, mainly to speak at a CFI convention in Orlando, Florida (but the trip also involved meeting some wonderful people, and visiting some great places for the first time, not least Yale University, The Kennedy Space Centre, and the superb CFI headquarters in Amherst, NY).

I'll also give shout-outs to the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, the national science fiction convention (also in Melbourne), and the splendid evening put on by the Hunter Writers' Centre for the annual Newcastle Poetry Prize.

As to the latter, I've been appointed at least until the HWC's next AGM in May 2013 as chair of its board of directors - a role that I'll perform to the best of my ability, seeing if I can do something positive for a small but effective community organisation. Please check out the HWC's website, and if you are in (or have connections with) the Hunter region maybe think about how you can be supportive in 2013.

Online highlights included a couple of interviews: this science-fiction-oriented one with journalist and horror writer Jason Nahrung; and this much more philosophical one for RationalHub. I was involved in some interesting online debates: the biggest one, over the issue of free will, ranged across this blog, Talking Philosophy, and other forums, including the ABC Religion and Ethics Portal, where I ended up writing this long piece. It's almost a manifesto.

It's been a delight to be involved heavily with Talking Philosophy - I'm sure the place will go from strength to strength next year (there's at least one pleasing announcement to emanate from there fairly soon). I also commenced in 2012 as a regular writer for Free Inquiry, which is another partnership that I'm very happy about.

I'm still editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology - most of JET's activity over the past two years has been devoted to the online publication of a bumper issue on the subject of minds and machines. I'm pleased to say that this is now almost complete. It's been the equivalent of co-editing (with Linda Glenn) a large book. Meanwhile, the fifth anniversary of my tenure in that position at JET is about to come around. Time really does seem to fly!

Dominating my own publications for the year was my latest book, Freedom of Religion and the Secular State (released in January from Wiley-Blackwell), though I also had a long peer-reviewed article published by Ethics and Information Technology, and there were numerous other publications, some of which I've mentioned in earlier paras.

And so we move into 2013. I've been working hard through recent months, and I've been professionally involved with other people who've been working hard. You'll gradually see announcements rolling out, starting soon. Very soon.