Isle of Wight Literary Festival

Wow! What a whirlwind of a weekend! I can somewhat proudly say I conquered my demons this weekend. On Friday I was involved with the schools programme running on the island which meant I was supposed to be chatting to a small group of teenagers about my books and writing. It turned out that I entered the college to find an auditorium, complete with microphone and no less than EIGHTY teenagers aged 11 and up! It was certainly a baptism of fire, but luckily I didn't have long to freak out about it and it all went well.

I started by reading my prologue from WitchBlood, then we chatted a bit about what might be expected from the book in the coming chapters. I did a couple more readings, chatted about self-publishing and had lots of time for questions... and happily they did seem interested and there were loads of questions! In fact we ran out of time :)

I must have done something right because 24hrs later my UK Kindle rankings had jumped up 10,000 places! Here is the programme for my slot on Sunday at Northwood House...

It was quite an experience with lots of famous faces! At one point I was selling some of my books after doing my slot in the spooky cellars and Anneka Rice wandered past! I was taken up to the 'Green Room' for a lovely lunch with my family and met Sir Max Hastings who was very nice and I saw Kate Mosse being interviewed. The children had a lovely time at a fairy workshop, listening to stories and making wings with a local children's author, Jules Marriner and then we jumped on the ferry home...

Here are a couple of photos of the beautiful Isle of Wight: