Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 entries.
It’s been an incredibly busy week and I’ve managed to spend a good deal of it away from the desk which is always a bit of a treat. On Tuesday, I met up with writer pal, Sam Mills, in Notting Hill where we had a bit of a location tour – finding the travel bookshop which inspired the one in the Richard Curtis film as well as posing outside the famous blue door which is now black and a bit scruffy!
Then, on Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending Compassion in World Farming’s ‘Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards’ ceremony which took place at the ‘Temple’ in the Freemason’s Hall in London – an incredible room full of symbols straight out of a Dan Brown novel. And there was a wonderful moment when Ben and Jerry’s accepted their award and came in accompanied by a pantomime cow!
Finally, on Thursday night, it was the HarperCollins Summer Party which was held at the Orangery in Kensington Palace – a stunningly romantic venue. It’s always lovely to meet fellow authors and do a bit of star-spotting too and I was completely over the moon to meet a real Jane Austen hero – actor, Dan Stevens, who played Edward Ferrars in the recent Andrew Davies adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.
Continue reading Locations, Awards and Austen Heroes! »
One of the events I look forward to each year is the Oxford Literary Festival and, this year, I went to hear Anthony Horowitz talking about his books and TV career at the Sheldonian Theatre. I’m a huge fan of his Alex Rider novels and have heard him speak before. He’s one of the most entertaining and open speakers I’ve ever heard and he always makes time to meet all his fans afterwards, signing books late into the night.
More Writer Top Tens this week – from two of my favourite authors - Adele Geras and Sam Mills.
Continue reading Oxford Literary Festival and More Writer Top Tens »
I was out and about a lot this month. First, there was a writers’ day in London when I met lovely author Sam Mills who is staring in a film adaptation of her amazing children’s book, The Boys Who Saved the World. Watch the fabulous trailer here. We then went to meet with best-selling author Carole Matthews who was part of a panel giving a talk about promotion. And then, to round off the day, it was off for a hot chocolate with author Juliet Archer who had just done a mammoth book signing at Borders on Oxford Street for her debut novel, The Importance of Being Emma, which I’m really looking forward to reading. We both share a love of Jane Austen, and Juliet is writing wonderful updated versions of Austen’s novels.
Another trip took us to the Suffolk coast. Here’s Molly and me in front of the Butt and Oyster at Pin Mill – the setting of one of my favourite Arthur Ransome novels, We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea.
It’s always a magical feeling visiting somewhere that you’ve read about in a novel and I got very excited when I discovered Alma Cottage, believing that I might just bump into the Walker children or dear Jim Brading.
Our big trip of the month was a week on the Pembrokeshire coast where hubby painted and I made good progress on my new novel, Connie Gordon’s Clan. But it wasn’t all work and, doing our best to dodge the gales, we had many gorgeous, gorse-filled walks along the coast, spying the sweet violets, primroses and celandine.
Continue reading March 2009 »