A series of fortunate events...

It's been a busy time and it's going to get busier, which is why I haven't had much time to blog recently. Anyway, here I am, lurking indoors on a lovely sunny morning in time-honoured writerly fashion, with a cup of tea and my laptop powered up, all ready to catch up.

My last blog post was about this year's Crieff Arts Festival, which took place two weeks ago. I took part in an event called Writers Live, hosted by the Strathearn Artspace. Writers Live featured a number of authors local to Crieff, who read from their work and took questions from the audience. At the end of the session, there was an interactive talk about publishing by Helen Lewis-McPhee, who works for Canongate, and Gonzalo Mazzei of Grace Note Publications. Writers Live was very well-attended with an enthusiastic audience. I live-tweeted the whole five hours(!) on behalf of Crieff Arts Festival, so if you would like to see photographs etc do follow the Festival on https://twitter.com/CrieffArtsFest. I am sorry to say however that there are no photographs of me doing my bit because I was the one taking all the pictures! Writers Live was followed by Crieff Community Band performing traditional Scots music and song, with support from Nigel's All-Stars (pictured in the black and white photo). So it was altogether a lively day and lots of fun, although by the end I was gasping for a nice cup of tea...

Also in August, I went to a party at the National Museum of Scotland for ALCS, who (if you haven't heard of them) are the people who organise PLR payments, ie, every time someone borrows an author's book from the library, the author gets about 6p. PLR is a brilliant thing. Although authors get used to jokey remarks about being "the next J.K.Rowling", most of us aren't rich beyond our wildest dreams (sadly) and so PLR payments can be a very helpful and welcome windfall. I'd also like to point out that I have occasionally heard people justify downloading pirate copies of books for free on the basis that borrowing them from the library would also be free. Well, yes, free to the borrower, but actually the author does get a tiny payment. So please do support your library!

More recently, I was at a party organised at the Central Reference Library in Edinburgh by Teen Titles, the book review magazine written by and for teenagers. The event was attended by teen reviewers from ten Edinburgh secondary schools, and many YA writers including Cat Clarke and Teri Terry, pictured with me (left). Teen Titles has outlasted many other publications, and has now been running for so long that apparently its original teen reviewers must now be in their middle 30s! It was great to meet so many enthusiastic readers, and it was also lovely to meet so many other authors. Writing is a solitary business, so it is great to get out and meet people for a change...

Anyway, after the excitement of two parties in one month (which virtually never happens!), September looks a bit quiet, but I'm glad to say that in October I shall be attending the second ever UKYA Extravaganza, in Nottingham. The first Extravaganza took place last year in Birmingham and was the brainchild of YA authors Kerry Drewery and Emma Pass. The idea of holding an Extravaganza is to get lots of YA authors together in one place to meet readers and bloggers. The fab thing about the Extravaganzas is that they are (and will be) regional. Not everyone (particularly not teen readers with limited cash) can afford to travel to London for events. UKYA Extravaganza takes the authors to where their fans are. Here's the line-up for the Nottingham event, which is on October 10th, with ticket sales starting on Monday (7th September):

NB If you'd like to attend, book early, because the last Extravaganza was a sell-out!

Right. Now I think it's time for another cup of tea...