June 2025
Preparations started in earnest for the Author event that
Carley-Ann Osborn and I are holding on July 12th. We visited The Maltings
Academy in Witham to announce the winners.
Saturday 7th Back at Firstsite in Colchester. Last time I was there, my
Ukrainian friend, Olena, asked why I wasn’t wearing my Steampunk outfit. So I
did a deal with her, I would wear it next time if she wore traditional
Ukrainian dress. She did. She’s from Kharkiv was lucky to get her family out of
Ukraine. Her story was desperately sad, but she is so upbeat and has started
her own business here.
Thursday 12th I received an email from the Austin Macauley acquisitions team
accepting the manuscript for ‘The Branford Chronicles book 3: An unwelcome
passenger’ A politician gets infected with a parasite that starts to affect her
behaviour, making her take dangerous risks. Detective Naomi Charlton gets back
from her honeymoon and is immediately thrust into an investigation of a
suicide, though she quickly realises that it’s a murder.
Saturday 14th Chelmsford market. My usual partner, AM author Carley-Ann Osborn,
was not able to do this one, so I was on my own. A quiet day but at least I
covered my costs.
Sunday 15th I did my third video interview. This time it was with Austin
Macauley author Aki McKenzi, where we discussed their debut novel Edge of
Empire and the follow-up ‘Saltwater and Smoke’. The interview went really well;
here is the YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/NVA23LvyAzE
Saturday 21st Hawthorns fair Braintree. A disappointing day. It was billed as a
family event, but no families turned up. One book sold. Organisers were
embarrassed.
Sunday 22nd Sudbury arts centre. A much better day, held in an old church, the
setting was great. A slightly different event to the usual author events,
as there were panel discussions on various aspects of writing, plus we all did
readings of our work.
Tuesday 24th Back at the Kelvedon Labour club’s open mic night with my duo
buddy John. Just 4 songs, including Bo Diddley’s ‘Can’t Judge a book by its
cover’ which I dedicated to all those people who look at my books and say they
won’t like them, even though they don’t know anything about them.
Friday 27th Clacton Costa. A surprisingly good day! I had good conversations
with people and sold far more than I was expecting. One person came up to me,
pointed at a copy of ‘The Twinmere Beast’ and said “This is the one I want,
I’ve just looked it up on the internet” which is exactly what you want to hear
at events like that.
Saturday 28th Brentwood Festival. I had high hopes for this one, but alas it
was not so great. Mainly because I was given a pitch right next to the
live performance area and it’s hard to talk about your book when there’s a
saxophone quintet blaring away 10 feet behind you.
Monday the 30th: I received a bit of fantastic news. More about that
in next month’s blog.
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