The above Festival takes place this weekend and am SO hoping it goes well, we have a good attendance and that it will not be a one off. Meg Reid, the Festival Director, has worked so hard and I am in awe of her organisational skills and perseverance. Mark you, she used to run a theatre company so I should not realy be surprised.
We have a great line up of speakers including Helen Rappaport, Nicola Upson, Barbara Nadal, Sophie Hannah and Linda Gilllard to name but a few and we are enormously grateful to them all for agreeing to take part. They have all been generous with their time and have committed to the date before we even knew if there would be any money available so huge thanks all round.
Simon (Stuck in a Book) and I are doing a chat on blogging and I have been bashing out my notes and planning what I am going to say and freely admit that I am feeling very nervous about it all. When I started Random Jottings I never envisaged that I would end up talking at a book festival but life has a habit of throwing up the unexpected.
I am also introducing four of the other talks and so have been working out what I am going to say and will have some questions ready to ask for that awful moment of silence when you ask the audience if they have anything they would like to ask and they all cower in their seats.....
Thank goodness I saw the doctor this week and am now feeling better as I was getting a bit frazzled about everything last week but am feeling calmer now. My good friend Daphne is coming to stay with me over the weekend and is attending the Festival so it will be great to see her and have her around.
Posting this week may therefor be be a tad sporadic, as it has been of late for which I apologise, but will try and keep you up to date with matters and, of course, will give a run down of the Festival next week. I have decided not to take my laptop with me this weekend so I can concentrate on what I am doing and avoid the temptation to sit up late at night posting about it all.
Have just started what I think is going to be a rather charming book - Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole. It is epistolery and in style is already reminding me of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in its warmth and with. Will report back in due course.
One of the talks I am introducing is one on Mapp and Lucia so Au Reservoir everyone!