Things I have learned this week: The Women's Prize has the best parties, Cambridge is lovely, publishing is full of awesome women, and Ali Smith is more lovely than words can describe. Ok, I knew the last one already, but it always bears repeating.
Monday evening the Women's Prize shortlist was announced, which means I got to skibble down to one of the Serpentine Galleries in London and spend the evening drinking champagne and Baileys, eating the best canapés I've ever encountered, and geeking out about books with some of the most well spoken and intelligent women I've ever encountered. I am somewhat relieved that The Shore didn't make the shortlist (though I blame Philip for jinxing it), as I found out that evening that shortlistees are going to be involved in what sounds like a terrifying number of public events for horrifyingly large numbers of audience members. Considering that I still hyperventilate and freeze in front of my classroom of thirteen students, that could only have ended messily.
Coming back from London I made a shocking error in judgement with regards to trains, and wound up waiting in Cambridge for the 2 AM National Express to Norwich to stop. Which makes a good story, but is something I'm going to try to avoid doing again.
On Saturday I got to go back to Cambridge by National Express, thankfully not at 2 AM, to be handy for the debut writer panel run by Ali Smith at the Cambridge Lit Festival on Sunday morning. The other two ladies were Sarah Bannan, whose novel Weightless reminded me of both The Virgin Suicides (in a very good way) and the parts of my childhood I haven't had the courage to write about yet, and Claire Lowdon, whose novel Left of the Bang is tight and suspenseful in a way that demands you keep reading as quick as you can while simultaneously demanding that you put it down for a moment to give your heart a rest. We had the chance to chat with each other in the green room ahead of the event, and I really hope that I run into both of them again.
And today I return to real life, and the final week of classes. I'm a bit sad that I probably won't be teaching this batch of students again, somewhat relieved that I'll be getting my life back. There are more things that I want to do than can possibly be done over this summer - which thankfully hasn't booked up yet, though I already know that I'm going to be pretending to be a professional at the Edinburgh Festival on the 21st of August. Perhaps this summer will actually go to plan, for once.
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